I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku
by elfinblue
Summary: Did a drunk Steve get kidnapped by aliens or did a concussed Danny imagine the whole thing? Case fic with bromance, a little Danny whump, and an honest to God plot. Updating daily until further notice. Set after the end of season 7 so no Chin or Kono. I'm so sorry! Rated T for some grown-up language. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: If you're reading The Steve Exchange, don't worry! I'm still going to finish it. This story just kind of crept up and smacked me in the back of the head and demanded to be written. It's an actual case story with a genuine, honest-to-goodness plot, which I know in its entirety. I've got several chapters written already and I'll update daily until I either finish it or catch up to myself. There's a lot of bromance and a little bit of Danny-whump. It's set sometime after the end of season 7 and after Chin and Kono have left. I hated to write it without them, but because I know they're not going to be there it just felt wrong to write them in. :( I'm so sorry!

There's no real point to this but I thought the title was kind of funny. I'll put the English translation at the end of the story but if you're terribly curious you can run it through Google translate (which is how I got the Hawaiian version). I do not, of course, own anything to do with Hawaii Five-0. If I owned it, I'd pay Grace and Daniel and keep the ohana together.

Chapter One: Greys' Anatomy

Commander Steven McGarrett of the Hawai'ian governor's Five-0 task force rubbed one hand across reddened eyes and spoke with tears in his voice.

"A dead soldier is still a soldier," he said sorrowfully. "I took a vow to leave no man behind, so I've brought you home like I promised I would."

Across the car, sitting (for once) behind the wheel of his black Camaro, Detective Danny Williams slapped himself in the forehead and dragged his hand down, splayed fingers raking across his face. He got out and circled the vehicle quickly, but by the time he reached the passenger door his partner was already out and leaning at a precarious angle against the bumper.

"Danno," he said, wide-eyed and breathless with alarm, "Danno! My house is falling down!"

"Maybe I can fix it," Danny said. He slid in beside his best friend, put his right shoulder under Steve's left arm and wrestled him upright. "Is that better?"

"Is what better?" Steve asked.

"Oh. My. God." Danny sighed. He dragged his friend towards the front door, taking at least half his weight and trying to keep his stumbling walk from turning into a tumble. "Steven, I know you don't want to talk to me about this, which really hurts my feelings, actually, though I know there's no point in pointing that out right now, but you're really going to have to address the fact that your radiation poisoning is affecting your liver."

Steven lurched around in sudden alarm, nearly upsetting them both, and shushed Danny, poking him in the nose with his finger in the process and clanking the dead soldier-a nearly-empty bottle of Long Board-against his nose and chin. "Shh! Shh! Don't talk about that! Danny might hear you!"

Danny pressed his lips together and balanced Steve against the door frame as he dug out his own set of keys to unlock the McGarrett house. A rising wind heralded the imminent arrival of a summer storm and he wanted them both safely inside before the rain hit.

"I don't even know what to say to that," he decided, dragging Steve inside and closing the door behind them. "Okay, so I know it's wrong of me to take advantage of your current, compromised intellect, but I have to ask. Why don't you want me-er, Danny-to hear?"

"I don't want him to know I broke his liver," Steve said sorrowfully.

Danny's eyes softened. "I think he knows, Babe."

"He doesn't know," Steve insisted angrily. "How does he know? I didn't tell him. Did you tell him?"

Danny pulled Steve towards the kitchen and attempted to push him down into a chair at the table but the taller man resisted and wound up rebounding off the counter and leaning up against the refrigerator.

"He's a detective. He figured it out. He's not mad, you know?" Danny said gently.

"He's not mad?"

"He's not mad."

Steve smiled blissfully. "That's nice. Who's not mad about what?"

"Oh for the love of Pete. Never mind."

Steve cuddled his almost-empty beer bottle and then held it up as if he were thinking about finishing the last dregs of alcohol in the bottom.

"Why don't you give that to me?" Danny said.

"No! It's mine! It's my dead soldier! I promised him I'd bring him home!"

"And you did, all right? You did. Look around. Where are you?"

Steve looked around. "Home?"

"Right. So you brought him home. And now you need to give him to me and I'll arrange a burial for him."

"With full honors?"

"Absolutely."

Steve relinquished the empty bottle and Danny carried it out to the lanai to drop it into the trash out there. "Now I'm anthropomorphizing empty beer bottles," he muttered to himself. He returned to the kitchen just in time to discover that Steve had retrieved a new Long Board out of the refrigerator. Steve managed to get the cap off but he was far from at his best and Danny was able to wrestle it away from him before he drank any more.

"That's mine!" Steven protested. "I want that."

"You have had enough! This is my point," Danny said. "I have known you for seven years now, Steven, and I have seen you drink much-MUCH-more than you managed to put away tonight. But I have NEVER seen you get _this_ drunk."

Steve peered at him balefully. "I'm not drunk."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not."

"Okay, but do you realize you're wearing your buddy Jacobson's jacket?"

Steve glanced down and hugged the Navy dress blue jacket tighter around his torso. "It's mine now. He can't have it back. I won it fair and square in hon- hon- honorab-able combat."

"Babe. You took it off his chair while he was in the john."

"That counts."

"Okay, whatever. You can explain it to his CO when he reports without it tomorrow. The point is-" Danny broke off and sighed. "I don't know why I'm even bothering. We have to be at work in," he checked his watch, "just under five hours. Knowing you, you'll be perfectly sober again by then and you can go back to avoiding me on purpose instead of by dint of alcohol poisoning. Just do me a favor right now, okay?" He got a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, then set it on the counter next to his friend. "Drink this before you go to bed. And take these," he fetched a couple of ibuprofen and a vitamin tablet from the medicine chest in the downstairs bathroom. "It'll keep you from feeling quite so wretched in the morning."

Steve obediently swallowed the pills and washed them down with the water. As he was drinking, though, he pointed at the open beer. "I'd rather drink that," he said.

"No, you wouldn't," Danny said. "Trust me. you've drunk enough of those."

When Steve had finished the water, Danny took the empty glass and helped Steve upstairs to his room. He helped him pull off his shoes and remove his belt and pushed him down on the bed, thankful that he wasn't wearing cargo pants. Danny wouldn't dare let Steve sleep in cargo pants. There was too much chance he'd have something dangerous in the pockets, like knives or hand grenades or surface-to-air missiles.

He closed the bedroom window nearly all the way, just leaving it open a crack so fresh air could come in and so Steve could hear the surf. As much as he, Danny, hated the sound, he knew his best friend found it soothing. Then he went back to the bed, pulled the top sheet over Steve and tucked it around his shoulders, tucking him in the way he would Charlie. The way he had done for Grace, until she got too old.

"Danno?" Steve said.

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I had fun tonight."

Danny smiled. "Yeah. I thought you did. I'm glad you got to see your old SEAL team friends again."

"Me too. They're good friends. They're not my best friend, though. You know who is my best friend?"

"Who's that, Babe?"

"It's _you_ , stupid!"

"Aww. Thanks. I'm touched," Danny said, meaning it even though he spoke lightly.

"Thanks for being my designated driver tonight."

"You're welcome."

"You're a good DD, D...D...D...D...D..."

"Stop! You sound like a broken record. Just shut up and go to sleep, you mook. Late as it is, I'm just going to crash on your sofa. If you need anything, I'll be right downstairs, okay?"

Steve sat up suddenly, wrapped both arms around Danny's head, hugged him fiercely and planted a kiss half on his forehead and half on his ear. It was like being cuddled by an octopus.

"Okay, enough. Stop. Thank you, big guy. I love you too. Now lay down and go to sleep already."

"Okay," Steve said. He let go of Danny, flopped back onto the bed, and started snoring.

Danny shook his head. He had brought the glass upstairs and he took it to the upstairs bathroom and filled it with water, then took it back and set it on the bedside table. Then he turned the light off and made his way downstairs. He snagged the open bottle of Long Board when he went in to turn off the kitchen light. Normally he wouldn't drink this late when he had to be up early, but he'd spent the entire evening chaperoning half a dozen drunk Navy SEALS and he felt he was entitled.

The only light in the whole house now was a lamp on the end table beside the sofa. He gathered up a few throw pillows to cushion his head, then turned the lamp off and drank his beer by the flash of lightning coming in the window. Once that soldier had joined its fallen comrade, he kicked off his own shoes, made himself comfortable on his best friend's familiar sofa, and drifted off to sleep.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

The storm that had been grumbling on the horizon when they left the bar was only the first in a long line of squalls. It rolled over the beach, rumbled its way across the McGarrett house, and left, leaving, in its wake, a pensive calm. The next storm was already on its way in, but it was still far enough out that the lightning shooting through its thunderheads was silent.

Into this odd calm, a new sound inserted itself, rousing Steve McGarrett from his sleep. There was an odd hum in his room, a mechanical vibration and the sense that he was not alone. He opened his eyes, dazed and disoriented, and perceived a blue light filling the chamber. A movement drew his attention and he realized there were four figures outlined against the glow. It was a situation that, normally, would have had him jumping up and drawing weapons. Now, though, he felt oddly disconnected, as if he were outside his body, watching something that was happening to someone else.

The figures came closer, surrounding his bed, and he studied them. They were humanoid, tall and oddly put together. Their arms and legs seemed too spindly for their bodies and their heads were huge, with rounded skulls and tiny, pointed chins. They had neither ears nor noses, just slits where each would be, and their mouths were simply short, thin lines.

A voice, soft and echoing, filled the room. "Do not be afraid, Commander. We mean you no harm."

Steve blinked. "How are you talking without moving your mouths?"

"We are using telepathy. You can hear us in your mind."

"Oh." Steve considered. "Cool."

One of the beings made a motion with his hand and an object rose up beside the bed. It was a long platform with circular structures under each end. It was floating on a bevy of whirling propellers.

"Don't resist us," one of the creatures said. "You are meant to come with us tonight. We will not hurt you." It flipped back the sheet. It and another of the beings stepped forward and together they rolled Steve over, off the bed and onto the platform. It dipped slightly under his weight, then steadied.

He watched, detached, as they fastened straps across his chest and legs, trapping his arms at his side. The one who seemed to be controlling the platform gestured towards the door and the platform floated away from the bed and moved out into the hallway and down the stairs. With two beings in front of it and two behind, all steadying it, they made their way down the stairs and through the living room.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

The storm sounds had lulled Danny to sleep, a welcome reprieve from the incessant roar of surf. With them gone, his slumber lightened and became troubled. He was barely even asleep, floating in a grey twilight on the edge of waking. A faint murmur of voices drew him back to full awareness and he lay in the darkness, senses alert.

There were no more voices and no footsteps, but Danny was familiar enough with Steve's house to be able to read the creaks and groans of old floorboards being stepped on. Someone was on the second floor, headed for the stairs. His first thought was that Steve was up wandering around and he should go make sure he didn't fall and hurt himself. But there was too much movement. There were intruders in the house. Multiple intruders.

A low, mechanical hum made itself known, approaching down the stairs. The interlopers turned towards the living room, where he lay in darkness. Danny tensed and waited. When they were behind him, halfway across the room and headed for the door, he raised himself up and looked over the back of the sofa.

Four bizarre creatures were guiding a long, floating platform towards the door. Steve McGarrett, still asleep, was strapped to that platform.

Danny wished he had his gun, but it was locked in the trunk of the Camaro so he went with his voice and attitude instead.

"Hey!" he bellowed. He snapped on the lamp on the end table. None of the beings blinked. "What the hell do you think you're doing with my partner?"

The voice that answered him was odd and had an echoing quality. "This is not real. You are dreaming. Go back to sleep."

"Bullshit!" He rolled over the back of the sofa and got a hand on Steve's arm. "Get away and let go of him!"

One of the aliens said, "shit!"

Another circled behind him. The light and shadows in the room danced crazily as it snatched up the lamp. Danny felt a burst of pain and saw a flash of bright light, bright as a supernova, as it brought the lamp down over his head. He slipped into darkness and knew no more.


	2. You May Be Right--I May Be Crazy

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: Thank you, everyone, for the kind reception. I'm sorry I don't have time to respond to reviews individually. I'm working full-time and writing this story and three different books. I do read them all and I really, really appreciate them, honest!

Here's chapter two, as promised. :)

Chapter Two: You May Be Right, I May Be Crazy

Steve awoke, as usual, five minutes before his alarm went off. He yawned and stretched, turned his head to pop his neck, sat up and looked around. His memories of the previous night were muzzy. He could remember a dark bar, the faces of his old SEAL buddies, flushed with laughter and alcohol. Danny Williams with a smile that didn't reach his eyes, watching him worriedly when he thought he wasn't looking.

It had stormed, he remembered. He glanced out the window. The morning was bright and fresh. All the dust had been washed from the sky and the greenery.

He sat up and drank the water he found on his bedside table, knowing without being told that Danny had left it there for him. "You're such a mother hen," he thought at his absent partner. "A short, hairy mother hen with a bad attitude and a Jersey accent, but a mother hen nonetheless."

He changed into bathing trunks and went out back to the ocean for his morning swim. On his way back through the kitchen he stopped to blend yogurt, fruit, whey, and a raw egg into a breakfast protein drink, then went back upstairs and took a three-minute shower. Half an hour after he opened his eyes he was dressed and ready for work.

Steve fastened his watch on, thinking to himself that if he hurried he should have time to stop and pick up some malasadas on his way to work. The team would appreciate it and it was the least he could do to thank Danny for playing designated driver for him the night before. He headed through the living room, on his way to his truck, and stopped in confusion. Three throw pillows were piled in one corner of the sofa and there was a pair of shoes on the floor in front of the coffee table.

"Danny?" Steve called, looking around the room in confusion. He hadn't heard anything since he woke up and when he checked the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom they were both empty. He went back through the living room and as he approached the front door his confusion deepened, because he could see, through the light in the door, that the Camaro was still parked in front of his house.

Steve opened the front door and froze for a moment in horror. A familiar blond figure lay sprawled on the sidewalk, halfway to the street. He was lying under a tree and a fallen branch lay beside him.

With a muttered curse, Steve ran and dropped down beside his friend. Danny was barefoot, still wearing his clothes from the night before and sopping wet. His skin was cold and clammy and his lips were blue, but he was breathing and when Steve put his fingers on the side of his neck he found a strong, if slightly fast, pulse.

"Danny? Danny? Danno, wake up!"

Danny stirred and muttered and Steve tried to hold him still.

"Wait. Don't move. I'm gonna call for help."

Danny ignored him, rolled over and sat up with a groan. He blinked and wiped a hand down across his face.

"Are you okay?" Steve demanded. "What are you doing lying in the yard?"

Danny's expression went distant as he thought about it, then alarm washed over him and he turned to McGarrett, frantic, and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Oh my God! Are you all right? How did you get away from them?"

"Away from whom?" Steve asked, confused.

"The aliens! The aliens who were kidnapping you!"

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Danny Williams, wrapped head to toe in a warm blanket, sat on the edge of an examination table in the ER at Queen's Medical and glowered at the opposite wall.

Steve McGarrett stood next to him, leaning against the edge of the table. His legs were crossed at the ankles, his arms were folded across his chest, and his mouth was set in a tight line.

"I don't think you got drunk when you promised to be my DD," Steve said, voice flat.

"Oh?" Danny replied, his own voice dripping with sarcasm. " _Now_ you don't think that? Because you did. It was the first thing you said to me." He held up his fingers, making air quote marks to frame the words as he spoke them. "'Oh my God, Danny! You were supposed to be my designated driver! How drunk did you get?' You said that. Which says, to me," he indicated himself with both hands, "that that's what you thought.

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I didn't. It was just...just a reflex. Look! I didn't mean anything."

"You weren't thinking."

"Exactly!" Steve said. "What you said, I mean, it just surprised me."

"You just spoke."

"I just spoke."

"Without stopping to consider."

"Yes!"

"But, see, in my experience, when someone just speaks without thinking, when they don't stop to consider, what they wind up saying is generally the thing that's really on their mind. You have to take time to make up a lie. The truth is what comes blurting out."

"You said there were aliens!"

"So what? So maybe there were aliens. Did you ever stop to think about that? No! You just assumed that I broke my promise to you. That I- that I was a bad friend. And that I did something irresponsible that risked not only your life and my life but the lives of every other driver on the road."

"You said there were aliens! That's...outlandish! You've got to admit that that's outlandish."

"More outlandish than the idea of me driving while impaired? How long have we known each other, Steven?"

"Seven years," Steve sighed. "Which is starting to feel like a couple of hundred."

"Seven years," Danny echoed. "And in all that time have you ever known me to drive impaired? I'm the responsible adult in this partnership. I'm not the one who takes stupid chances. I have children, Steven. I have two beautiful, wonderful, amazing children who I want very much to see grow up. Two children who need me to be there for them. Whose well-being is the main reason-sometimes, I think, the only reason-I have to live. Not only am I not going to risk leaving them fatherless by doing something so completely irresponsible and unnecessary as driving under the influence, but someday, though I shudder to think about it, someday they, too, will be old enough to drive. And if they see me driving drunk, or they hear that I've been driving drunk, then they will think that it's okay for them to drive drunk. Do you think, after all the years you've known me, that I would do something like that?"

Steve pursed his lips and turned away. "No," he said shortly.

"No?"

"No."

"No? Because that's not the impression I got when you _accused me of doing it_."

"I said I'm sorry," Steve said. "Look, are we ever going to move past this point in the discussion or should I call someone to airlift me in a crate of MREs and some drinking water?"

"You thought that I betrayed your trust," Danny insisted stubbornly. "You don't talk to me anymore. You tell me you have radiation poisoning and then you brush me off when I ask you for specifics. You avoid me unless you need something or want something. And you didn't believe me when I told you what happened. You used to believe me when I told you something."

"There has never been a point in our relationship when I would believe you saw me getting kidnapped by aliens," Steve said, side-stepping everything else that Danny had said. "Especially not when you're hypothermic and have a nasty concussion."

"No, you just think I'm drunk."

"I don't think you're drunk already!" Steve ran a hand over his head, frustrated.

"But you don't believe me."

"I believe you _think_ there were aliens," Steve said with a sigh. "If you just shut up a minute I'll tell you what I think really happened."

"I know what you think really happened. You think I got drunk and hallucinated them." Danny waved his arms around as he was speaking and the blanket slipped off and pooled behind him on the table. He was still wearing his soggy clothing and was still barefoot, like he'd been when Steve dragged him into the ER. He'd been in a foul mood ever since Steve thoughtlessly accused him of getting drunk and he'd refused to change into a dry hospital gown. He had no other clothes in the car and his shoes were still in Steve's living room.

Steve picked the blanket back up and tucked it around his shoulders, ignoring Danny's attempts to bat his hands away. He pulled a fold up to cover his head.

"No. I don't. I said that, yes. And I said I'm sorry I said that. I'm _unbelievably_ sorry I said that. But if you'll just shut up a minute, I'll tell you what I _really_ think happened. Okay?"

Danny shrugged and huffed out an irritated breath. Steve chose to take that as a yes.

"You took me home last night. Just like you promised you would. Okay? Just like the mature, responsible, _amazing_ friend you are. You took me home and you put me to bed. And then, because it was so late, you decided to sleep on the sofa. Because sleeping in the perfectly good bed in Mary's old room would make entirely too much sense."

"I can hear the ocean in Mary's room. I hate the ocean. You know this, Steven."

"I know. I know. You hate the ocean. Never mind that it covers...you know what? I'm not going to get sidetracked into arguing with you about the ocean. Let's just go back to the sofa. You decided to sleep on the sofa. So you brought me home and you put me to bed and then you probably got a drink of water..."

"I drank a beer," Danny said with a touch of defiance.

"You what?"

"I drank a beer."

"After all this fit you've been throwing about me thinking you were drinking you're going to admit to me now that you were drinking?"

The medical staff had long since fled from their presence. A random nurse peeked in now and then quickly ran away again.

"One beer!" Danny said. "One lousy beer, which I did not drink until after I got you home safe and settled and which by no means got me drunk! And I only drank it because you'd opened it and you'd obviously had enough and I didn't want it to go to waste. And after putting up with half a dozen drunk-off-their-ass Navy SEALS all night, I figured I deserved it."

"Okay, fine. Whatever. My point is-my point _is_ -you took me home, you decided to sleep on the sofa, you kicked off your shoes and got ready to go to sleep and then, for some reason, you realized you needed to go out to the car for something. Maybe you'd left your phone there and you wanted it so you could watch the time. Maybe you realized there was a storm coming up and you weren't sure all the windows were rolled up. Or something. But, for whatever reason, you decided to run out to the car."

"I was barefoot, Steven. If I'd just been running out to the car, I'd have put my shoes on. Sane people do not run around outside with no shoes on."

"This is _Hawaii_! Sane people run around outside with no shoes on all the time! Listen! Maybe the beer mellowed you out a little. Maybe you were too tired to put your shoes back on. Maybe you heard a noise and thought someone was messing with your car so you didn't stop for shoes. My point is, you went outside and the wind came up. It tore a dead branch out of the tree and you got hit with it. It knocked you out-you have a goose egg on your head and a nasty concussion-and you dreamed there were aliens."

"I dreamed there were aliens," Danny repeated, voice flat.

"You dreamed there were aliens," Steve echoed. "Look, it's a theory, all right? It's a good theory. You have to admit it's a good theory. It's reasonable and logical and it fits all the facts. It makes sense. You have to at least concede that it's possible."

Danny sighed and his shoulders slumped. "Okay, fine. It's possible. It's possible I dreamed there were aliens."

"Right."

"Or there really were aliens, maybe."

Steve sighed.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve, as neat and collected as he ever was, dragged a barefoot and bedraggled Danny Williams with him into the Five-0 headquarters. Chin and Kono's offices sat dark and empty and Steve tried not to look at them. As much as he understood their needs to move on and as fiercely as he wished the cousins success in everything they did, their departure had left a hole the size of the big island in the Five-0 task force. One day, he knew, they would find other bodies to occupy the spaces they had taken up, but no one could ever truly replace them.

Lou Grover came out of his own office, sipping a cup of coffee, and studied them with raised eyebrows. "Damn, Danny! I thought Steve was getting drunk and you were gonna be the designated driver. What led you to tie one on?"

Danny glowered at him fiercely, yanked his arm out of Steve's grasp and went into his office. He slammed the door in Steve's face and they could hear the lock click. He closed the blinds on his window, shutting them out.

Steve leaned his forehead against Danny's closed door and sighed.

"Damn, I wish you hadn't said that. You got a bobby pin?"

Lou ran a hand over his bald head. "Gee, no. I must have forgotten to use any when I put up my hair."

Steve just glared at his attempt of humor and went to his own office. He came back with a paper clip and a light blanket he kept for the times he slept on his sofa. Deftly picking the lock, he went in after Danny and closed the door behind himself.

Danny had a sofa in his office too and he was lying on it now, still in his damp clothes. The light was off, the shade over the window drawn, but even in the dim light Steve could see lines of pain on his friend's forehead. He covered him with the blanket and crouched beside him.

"I'm going to go get you some dry clothes and pick up your shoes from my house. I'll grab us something for lunch while I'm out. You want anything in particular?"

Danny frowned and shook his head without opening his eyes.

"Oh, okay. You just want to pout then?"

Danny growled and didn't answer.

"I'll bring you some soup. You need to eat something so you can take more pain pills. And, Danny?"

"What?"

"It's not just your kids, man. You've got lots of reasons to live. You ever start doubting that, you tell me and I'll remind you what they are. Okay?"

He left the office without waiting for an answer, closing the door gently behind himself.

"You want to tell me what the hell's going on?" Lou asked.

"Apparently, I got kidnapped by aliens last night," Steve said. "Listen, I have to go run a couple of errands. Keep an eye on Danny for me. If I'm not back in two hours, he needs a concussion check."


	3. Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: Thanks again to everyone who's commented, followed, or favorited! *Hugs you all!* Here's chapter three, as promised. This one is pretty short but tomorrow's will be longer and then things are going to get _really_ weird. :)

Chapter Three: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

"Did he say what the aliens looked like?"

Steve sighed and wondered if it had really been wise of him to tell Lou Grover and Jerry Ortega about the morning's events. "He didn't say, no," he told Jerry. "And I didn't ask him."

"Because, you know, there's been a wave of UFO sightings in the Hawaiian Islands over the last eight months or so. Like, dozens of them!"

"And everybody and their brother has a cell phone with a camera on it now," Lou Grover said. "So how come none of these unidentified flying objects are ever caught on film?"

Jerry blinked and looked from one to the other. "They are. Lots of them have been. You want to see video? I can show you video."

Steve had returned with dry clothes and shoes for Danny and soup and sandwiches for everyone. Danny was down in the locker room now, showering and changing, and Steve and the others were setting out the food on a table in the Five-0 common area.

"Look, guys," Steve said. "Danny got hit on the head. He got knocked out. He's got a concussion and he lay outside in the rain all night and he had a weird dream. That's all there is to it, okay?"

"Fine. I'm not disagreeing," Lou said.

Jerry looked down and bit his lip.

"What?" Steve asked.

"Nothing." Jerry shrugged. "Only, it's just that, when you said that, you were looking to your left. That's what people do when they're..."

"Lying?" Lou supplied.

"Not being entirely truthful," Jerry hedged. "So that makes me think that maybe you think that there is something more to it. How do you feel? Do you have any strange marks on your body? Are there any holes in your memory? Are you missing any time?"

"No. There are no strange marks on my body. And I was drunk. Missing time and holes in my memory is kind of the point of getting drunk."

"So what is it that's making you think there's more to this?" Lou asked.

"I didn't say I did think that."

"You didn't have to. What is it?"

Steve sighed. He seemed to be doing a lot of that today. "Okay," he said, leaning in close to the other two and lowering his voice. "But don't tell Danny?"

"I think you're nuts if you think you can keep a secret from him without him at least figuring out that you're keeping a secret. But fine. I won't tell him," Lou said.

Jerry nodded.

"Okay," Steve said, "I went back to my house to pick up Danny's shoes, right? And I told you that Danny told me one of the aliens hit him on the head with the lamp off my end table?"

"Yeah? So what? Is it broken?" Lou asked.

"It's gone," Steve said.

"Gone?"

"Gone. I looked everywhere. In the house, out in the garage, in the trash can on the back porch in case it got broken. There isn't any trace of it. It's just gone."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"What's your name?"

"Oh, my God! Go away and leave me alone. I'm tired!"

"Sorry. Not until you tell me your name."

"Danny Williams. My name is Danny Williams. Your name is Lou Grover. His name is Jerry Ortega. Why has Steven got you doing his dirty work?"

"He had to go see the governor and you needed a concussion check. How many fingers am I holding up?"

Danny opened one eye and glared up at Lou balefully. Lou was giving him the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign. "I hate you so much right now."

"I just wanted to tell you that I believe you," Jerry said. His eyes were huge and he looked like an oversized koala bear. "If you'd like to tell me what happened some time, when you feel better, I'd really like to hear it."

Danny sighed. It seemed he'd been doing that a lot today. "Honestly," he said, "Steven's probably right. I got hit on the head and I had a weird dream."

"Well...maybe. But there are a lot of stories of people having close encounters of the third kind and a lot of those stories are really similar to what I've heard so far about your experience. And there have been a ton of UFO sightings in the Hawaiian Islands in the past eight months or so. I could show you video, if you like?"

"Later," Lou said. "Jersey needs his beauty sleep."

"Right," Jerry said. "Right! I'm sorry. Just, before you go back to sleep, can you just do me one favor? Can you tell me what the aliens looked like?"

Danny rolled over onto his back, covered his eyes with his forearm, and described the creatures he'd seen as best he could remember.

"Greys," Jerry breathed. He sounded awed.

"What?"

"Greys. What you're describing are called Greys. They're probably the most commonly-encountered aliens there are."

"Wait." Danny lowered his arm and opened his eyes. "Are you telling me other people have seen these things too?"

Jerry was carrying a tablet computer. He fiddled with it for a minute, then held it up. "Did they look like this?"

Danny suddenly found his breathing was funny and he felt light-headed and sick to the stomach. The picture Jerry was showing him was of the exact same kind of creature he'd encountered in Steve's living room the night before.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"You gonna be all right on your own?" Steve asked.

"I'm fine," Danny said tiredly. "I'm just going to go home and go to sleep."

"By yourself? Don't you have the kids tonight? You gonna be okay to take care of them?"

"It's fine. Grace is old enough to take care of herself and Rachel, actually, has Charlie right now. She's arranged for him to spend some time with Stan and Stan's parents."

"Really?" Steve frowned. "And how do you feel about that?"

"Good," Danny said. He caught Steve's disbelieving expression. "No, really. It's good. Look, for the first three years of his life, Charlie called Stan 'Daddy'. Stan thought that Charlie _was_ his son and his parents were Charlie's grandparents. That kind of love isn't something you can just turn off. And it shouldn't be." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Rachel and I are both at fault for this situation. Charlie is completely innocent and, much though it pains me to admit it, so is Stan. If helping them to maintain a relationship makes it easier for both of them, so be it."

He looked up at Steve and caught Steve looking back at him with a strange, soft expression.

"What?"

"What what?"

"'What what?' What 'what what'? What are you looking at me like that for?"

"Just thinking."

"Thinking what?"

"If he won't say it, I will," Lou said. He came over, put his hand on Danny's shoulder, looked into his eyes and spoke earnestly. "Jersey, of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, yours is...the most...human."

"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Danny exploded. "Enough with the Star Trek references. I'm going home now." He turned away and headed for the exit.

"May the force be with you!" Steve called after him. "That's not how you do the Vulcan hand thing. Live long and prosper anyway!"


	4. MIB

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: Well, here we are with chapter four. Thanks again to everyone who's reading this, whether you're reviewing or not. :)

Cubit2 had a comment I wanted to address here, in case anyone else was thinking the same thing. As far as my research shows (and I'll admit, I just did a basic Google search) alcohol restrictions for liver transplant recipients are only for those who received the transplant for reasons that involve alcoholism. Some doctors might recommend that other patients abstain as well, but that would be on a case-by-case basis. The website I found recommended drinking "in moderation" (but then, what doctor is ever going to tell you to go get sloshed? :D) If you have had a liver transplant and you're going to drink, Longboards would be a pretty good choice. They have only 4.6% alcohol, compared to an average of 5% for other beers and between 35-40% for hard liquor.

Chapter 4: MIB

Danny parked in his driveway and sat for a long minute in his car, watching. A black Lincoln Continental waited across the street, two people in it staring at him. He thought about confronting them-on a normal day he would in an instant-but his head was pounding and he still felt wretched. Grace was at the movies with Will and wouldn't be home for hours. He decided he'd give the pair in the car half an hour to make their move or make themselves scarce. Then, if they were still sitting there, he'd call HPD and let them handle it.

As it turned out, he didn't need to plan that far in advance. As soon as he got inside they left their vehicle and approached his house. He watched them through the glass in the door as they came up the walkway. There was something very odd about them.

It was a man and a woman, dressed in matching black suits that wouldn't have gotten a second look in any city in America except Honolulu. In Honolulu, at six o'clock on a Monday evening, two purposeful people in black suits meant Feds. Or something even more bizarre.

The man raised his hand to knock, ignoring the doorbell, and Danny pulled the door open before fist could strike wood.

"Something I can help you with?"

"May we come in Mr. Williams? We need to speak with you in private."

"Oh." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned into the door frame; tipped his head to the side, considering. "That's very interesting. You know my name. And who might you be, exactly?"

"My name is Mr. Smith," the man said. There was something disconcerting about their faces. It took Danny a minute to figure it out. Neither of them had eyelashes. In fact, there was no indication that they had any kind of body hair whatsoever. Both were wearing ill-fitting wigs and both had eyebrows drawn on with black eyebrow pencils, even though the female's wig was blonde. "This is my wife colleague, Mrs. Jones." He reached over and patted her left breast and she responded by putting her hand on his crotch. Neither of their expressions changed.

"What the hell are you doing?" Danny demanded. "Don't be groping each other on my front porch. Are you nuts or what? And, wife colleague? Wife colleague? What the hell is a wife colleague?"

"Does that not make sense? We should continue this discussion in private. May we come in?"

"No." Danny stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. "I'm not comfortable with having you in my home. We can talk here. What do you want?"

"We have received a report that you have been telling...odd stories. About something you claim to have experienced last night. It would be unwise for you to continue to do so."

He pursed his lips and considered. "Odd stories. Really. And from whom, exactly, have you received these reports, if I might ask?"

"That is not relevant."

"Oh, I think it's extremely relevant. Because the only people I've discussed last night's events with would not 'report' them to anyone. So who the hell are you and how do you know about what happened to me last night?"

His visitors looked at one another. "We are not at liberty to say. But it is imperative that you refrain from telling stories. You would not be wise to trouble your authorities with this."

"Trouble the authorities," he repeated. "Trouble the authorities?" He stepped forward, into their space, forcing them both to take a step back. "I _am_ the authorities!"

"You do not want to pursue this matter." The female spoke for the first time. "If you do, you will come to regret it. You have lovely children..."

It was the wrong thing to say.

"Are you threatening my family?" Danny demanded, furious. His head was pounding, spikes of pain throbbing in time to his heartbeat. He ignored it and pressed ahead. "Are you seriously standing here threatening my family? I should arrest you both on the spot."

The odd pair fell back again. "That will not be necessary," Mr. Smith said. "Just consider our words. The truth is not out there and nothing you could find would be worth the danger it would put you in."

They turned together, as if on some unspoken signal, and walked back to their car. Danny watched them drive away, taking note of the license plate number.

When they were gone he locked the front door again behind himself and headed for his own car, pulling out his phone as he walked.

"Dispatch? This is Detective Danny Williams with Five-0. I need you to run a plate for me. The vehicle is a 2017 Lincoln Continental, black, license plate LGE 171."

He waited while they looked up the information and wasn't surprised when it came back as a bogus plate. "Okay, put an APB out on it for me, please. If it's spotted, have the officers approach with caution. I have no reason to believe the occupants are armed and dangerous, but I also have no reason to believe they're not. If you catch them, Five-0 wants them for questioning in connection with a case we're working on."

He hung up the call and climbed back into the Camaro. His head was pounding and he took a second to press his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the pain. Charlie was on the mainland with Rachel and hopefully well away from whatever this craziness was, but Grace was here and he wouldn't rest until he knew she was okay.

He sent her a text: **sweetheart please call me immediately.**

His phone lit up and her ringtone-Sweet Child of Mine by Guns-N-Roses-began playing within seconds.

"Hi, Monkey."

"Danno? What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he said. "Something very weird is going on. Where are you? You're at the movies with Will, right?"

"Yeah. We're just going into the theater. Do we need to come home?"

"No, stay there. There are lots of people there, right?"

"Yeah, lots."

"Okay, I'm very sorry to do this, but I'm going to crash your date. I'll explain when I see you. What theater are you at and what movie are you seeing?"

"We're at the Royal Kamehameha Theater on Nu'uanu Avenue. Gallery D. We're seeing Guardians of the Galaxy 2."

Danny sighed. "Of course you are."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve sat in his office, studying some of the UFO footage that Jerry had sent him. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, some of the video was making him uneasy.

"This is the best one," Jerry said from over Steve's left shoulder.

Taken with a cell phone, the video showed a glowing, flashing object in the sky over downtown Honolulu. The audio was of three people having the kind of conversation you'd expect from three people filming a UFO.

"What is that? What _is_ that?"

"It's an airplane, you guys. It's just an airplane."

"It can't be an airplane. It's flying too low to be an airplane."

"Maybe it's a helicopter then."

"If it was a helicopter, we'd hear it. The rotors would be making a thumping noise."

"Maybe it's a drone. Could it be a drone?"

"It doesn't look like a drone. I guess it could be a drone."

The object came lower and it was possible to make it out. It looked like every flying saucer in every corny sci-fi movie Steve had ever seen. While the size was impossible to estimate with the naked eye, it was a metal disk with a single white light in the center and colored lights flashing around the rim. It came down lower than the tops of the skyscrapers.

"Look," Jerry said. "It's a physical object. You can see the reflection in the windows on that office building."

"I think the kid's right," Steve said. "I think it's a drone."

"Wait."

The object rose again, until it was just a bright light sparkling against the cloud cover. Then it winked out and almost immediately reappeared at a distance. It hovered, spun around a couple of times, then shot off to the right and disappeared so fast it was like it had never been there.

"An engineer who studied this footage said that when it disappeared and then reappeared it had moved almost a thousand yards in less than a second. Then, when it shot off at the end, it was moving nearly eight hundred miles an hour."

"That engineer have any idea how big it was? Or what kind of propulsion it might have been using?"

"It was eight point three meters across. He had no idea about propulsion. Our science doesn't have anything that can move like that at those speeds. It just doesn't."

"That we know about," Steve amended. "Our government doesn't share all its secrets, Jer. And I think it's safe to say that none of the other governments do either."

"So you think it's, what? Some kind of DARPA research project?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny," Steve said. He caught Jerry's awed expression and sighed. "Because I don't know. It's possible but I don't know. I'm joking, Jerry."

"Jokes. Right. I get those, sometimes."

A loud bang from the common area drew their attention, along with Lou Grover's voice.

"God _damnit_!"

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

By the time Danny arrived at the theater the movie was already in progress. He slipped into the dark auditorium quietly, planning to find a seat a few rows from Grace and Will. He hated to intrude-he'd been trying to accept that his baby girl was growing up and he was making a real effort to give her space. He trusted her implicitly and it was important to him that she know that. The veiled threats from his visitors had rattled him, though, and he wouldn't rest easy unless he had eyes on her.

Instead they found him. They had been watching the door for him and they'd saved him a seat. They were in the back row, in the corner, and he settled in beside his daughter with Will on her other side, against the wall. He could see the whole theater from there, and everyone in the audience. He gave them a quick greeting and whispered a promise to explain after the show, and they fell silent and turned to the movie.

Knowing Grace was safe, Danny relaxed for the first time since his conversation with "Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones". The restless, troubled night and long day had taken a toll on him and he didn't even realize his eyes had closed until Grace nudged him awake again. The movie was over. The lights had come up and the rest of the audience members were making their way up the aisles.

"Danno, are you all right? You don't look so good. What's going on?"

He sighed and raked a hand down his face. "Baby, if I told you you'd never believe me."

She gave him a long, level look. "Whatever you tell me, I'll believe you. You've never lied to me before, I've got no reason to think you'd start now."

"Even if it's crazy?"

"Even if it's nuts," she agreed.

He gave the two teenagers a quick rundown of the previous night's events. "And I was ready to go with Steve's explanation," he concluded, "but then, tonight, there were a couple of very odd characters waiting for me when I got home. They seemed to know what I thought I'd seen, and they warned me not to tell the authorities."

"Ha. You are the authorities," Will said.

"That's what I told them. And then they made veiled threats against my kids. Charlie's far enough away he should be safe. I mean, God. I hope he's safe. But I was afraid they'd come after you. That's why I crashed your date tonight. And I'm sorry. But I couldn't rest until I knew you were safe."

"I'm not mad about _that._ " Grace said, her tone ominous.

"Uh oh," Will muttered, half under his breath.

"But you are mad about something?" Danny asked uncertainly.

She huffed out a breath in frustration. "Yes! I'm mad! You got hit on the head and you laid outside in the rain all night and you had to go to the emergency room...and nobody called me?"

"I'm sorry." He sighed. "I was fine and you were busy. I didn't want to worry you."

"I'm never too busy for you," Grace said, putting her arm around her father's shoulders. "And if you get hurt and I know it, yes. I'll worry. But if you don't tell me when you're hurt, I'll have to worry all the time."

"What do we do now?" Will asked.

Danny shot him a grateful look. "I don't want you coming home tonight," he told his daughter. "If your mom was home, I'd suggest you go there, but I don't want you to be alone either." He looked to Will. "Is there any chance your folks would let her stay at your house? Not in your room, obviously..."

"Sure. I'll call my mom. Samantha's room is empty with her at college. I know she wouldn't mind Grace using it."

"Is that okay with you, baby?"

"Sure." Grace leaned in, holding his right eyelid up and peering into his eye. She repeated the actions with his left. "I suppose I can give you a pass this time, since you're concussed. I'm going to have some choice words for Uncle Steve though."

The crowd was thinning. Danny edged his way out of the row, then let them exit in front of him. Will was talking on the phone with his mother and by the time they got to the sidewalk in front of the theater, it was all arranged.

"Where's your car?" Danny asked.

"We left it in the parking garage, three blocks that way," Will said, tilting his head to the right.

"Okay, well, I'm parked just over there, on the side street. Why don't you wait here, under the light, and I'll go get my car and drive you to get yours. Then I'll follow you home."

"What about you?" Grace asked. "What are you going to do tonight?"

"I don't know. I hadn't thought past making sure you're safe." He sighed. "I probably need to go find Steven and tell him about my visitors. So he can accuse me of being drunk or deranged again."

Grace leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. "He might bluster, but he knows you're not either. If you say something's going on, then something's going on."

Danny smiled. "How did you get to be such an amazing kid?"

She grinned. "I was raised right."

Danny left her with a smile and went down to the crosswalk. He was parked catty-corner from the movie theater so he'd need to cross both streets. He made it across the avenue, a busy thoroughfare, with the light, then turned and waited for the light to change so he could cross the side street. He was halfway across when Grace screamed.

Even half a block away on a busy street, Danny would always hear his daughter's voice, especially when it was raised in distress. He spun around to find her staring at him in horror. He just had an instant to register red metal coming towards him. A car, speeding down the busy main street, had veered out of the line of traffic and was about to run him down.

He did his best to jump out of the way, but it wasn't enough. The front bumper caught him on the right hip. He rolled up the hood and his head struck the windshield with a resounding crack. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours he saw a blinding light and then the world went dark.


	5. Lost in Space

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: I'm a huge baseball fan and I wrote this during a game so I couldn't resist the first scene. (Can you guess my favorite team? *G*) Sorry this update is so late at night. I had to work a late shift and I just got home. Thanks again to everyone reading! Hope you enjoy. :)

Chapter Five: Lost In Space

"God _damnit_!"

Steve and Jerry went out into the main office, following Lou's angry bellow. They found him in front of the big screen, lounging in the most comfortable chair in the room with a beer on the floor beside him and a bag of corn chips on his lap. A baseball game was playing on the screen.

"White Sox?" Steve asked. "Where'd you find a ballgame at this time of night It's got to be close to midnight in Chicago."

"They're not in Chicago, but yeah, it's about that. I have a subscription to MLB TV. I didn't have time to watch this live so I'm watching it from the archives. I get it on my phone so I just used the table to throw it up on the big screen."

"I see. Misappropriating government equipment," Steve helped himself to a handful of corn chips. "You could at least share the beer."

"There's more in the fridge in my office. If you think you can handle beer with that radioactive liver of yours."

"My liver's fine. Danny's imagining things," Steve said, wandering off in the direction of Lou's office.

Jerry dragged another chair over and sat down. "I don't know much about baseball," he admitted, "but isn't your team about to win?"

"Shh! Don't say that. You'll jinx us!"

Steve returned with a beer and pulled over another chair. "Seriously, Lou. You're up 8-4 with two out in the bottom of the 8th. What are you bitching about?"

"Two out and two on," Lou said. "Five minutes ago we were leading 8-2 with two out and nobody on."

"So they've got a little bit of a rally going. You're still way ahead and the game's almost over."

"You don't understand. We're playing the goddamned Kansas City Royals. They do this. They do this to _us._ All. The. Damned. Time. It's like they got some weird voodoo thing or something."

On the screen the lefty at the plate swung his bat. There was a loud crack and a lot of running and shouting. When the action died down Jerry snagged a handful of chips and spoke, looking down at it rather than up at Lou. "You're still leading 8-5."

Lou just gave him a dirty look, then turned to Steve. "They're playing in Kansas City. Have you ever been to a game there?"

"Can't say that I have, no. Have you?"

"A couple of years ago, yeah. When we went to the mainland for Renee's cousin's wedding? It was in Independence, Missouri, right there in the greater Kansas City area. The Sox came to town while we were there so a bunch of us went to a game. Naturally, I made sure to wear my White Sox gear. We're division rivals. So what do you suppose happened when I walked into that stadium wearing a White Sox shirt and a White Sox hat?"

"They give you a lot of grief?"

"That's what you'd expect, right? I mean, that's what'd happen at a _normal_ stadium."

There was another crack of wood on leather from the game.

"You still have an 8-6 lead," Jerry muttered.

Lou growled and continued his conversation with Steve. "No! They were _nice_ to me! 'Hey! You're a White Sox fan! Welcome to our beautiful stadium! It's so great that you could come visit us! Can we buy you a beer? How about some nachos? Do you need to know where to get the best barbecue?' While all the time their team is down there on the field, sharpening their cleats so they can trample all over your heart. And then they devour your hopes and dreams. And you can't even be properly mad at the fans, because they're all being so _friendly_. And then, after we take a big lead only to get blown out of the water in the bottom of the ninth, we decide to console ourselves with some of that barbecue they were talking about."

"It was bad?"

"It was amazing. Meat fallin' off the bone, melt in your mouth, the most perfect blend of spices and seasonings..."

"I don't understand," Jerry said.

"You want to hate them," Steve explained, "but if you do you feel like a heel because they're being so friendly. It's frustrating."

"Oh." He frowned at the screen. "Are they booing their own player?"

"No. They're yelling Moose. That's his nickname. They're cheering for him because he just hit a homerun."

"Oh." He leaned over and patted Lou's shoulder. "You're only one run behind though, right?"

Lou just whimpered.

Steve's phone rang and he stepped away to answer it. "Hey, Gracie. What's up? What?"

Something in the quality of his voice caught the other men's attention. Lou shut off the game and they both stood up.

"How bad is it? Okay, sweetheart. Don't panic. You go with Will. Tell him to drive carefully. We'll meet you at the hospital."

He hung up the phone and turned to his teammates, "Danny got hit by a car."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve McGarrett strode into the emergency room like the Allied forces taking Normandy. There was no sign of Danny nor of Grace but Will Grover was there. His mother was there, too, and the two of them stood talking to Duke Lukela. Lou and Jerry had come in behind Steve and Lou went around him now to meet his wife and son.

"Any word?"

"Grace is back with him now," Renee said. "He has a nasty bruise on his hip, a couple of cracked ribs, and they're concerned because he's hit his head twice now in twenty-four hours. They're going to keep him overnight for observation but they think he's going to be fine."

"What the hell happened?" Steve demanded. "Grace said he got hit by a car?"

"Yeah, it wasn't moving too fast, fortunately. And he managed to jump up enough that he went over the hood instead of under the wheels."

"Was it on purpose?"

Duke hesitated. "We're not sure."

"Where's the driver? I want to talk to him."

"It's a her, actually. A middle-aged woman. She's here, being treated for shock and damage to her eyes. She lost control. It was very odd."

"Odd how?"

"Danny was crossing the side street at the crosswalk while Mrs. Anderson was driving by on the avenue. Just before she reached him she claims a bright red light struck her in the eyes and blinded her. She lost control of her vehicle and struck Detective Williams."

"A light," Steve repeated skeptically.

"Yes. An eye specialist has just finished examining her. She has burns on her retina that suggest someone hit her in the eye with a laser beam. Something like a common laser pointer, only maybe a bit more high-powered."

"She gonna be okay?"

"She should be, yes."

"Okay, so any idea where the laser came from?"

"Not yet. We're collecting video from traffic cams and any security cameras in the area that might have caught something. And, of course, we're still looking for that black Continental."

Steve blinked. "What black Continental?"

"Uh, the one Danny put out an APB on. With the bogus license plates?"

"Oh, yeah. That black Continental." Steve, glancing around, had seen Will Grover's eyes widen slightly at the mention of the vehicle. "Do me a favor, Duke? Copy us on that video and let me know if you find anything or if the car turns up. Okay?"

"Yes, of course. Tell Danny I said to get well soon?"

"Will do. And thanks."

Steve caught Will by the arm and pulled him aside, his father following along protectively and Jerry tagging after them. "Why do I get the feeling you know what he's talking about?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. I mean, Mr. Williams told us about it at the movie theater."

"Told you about what?"

"When he went home tonight there were a couple of freaky characters in a black Continental waiting for him. They were warning him not to talk about you getting kidnapped by aliens last 4\night and they threatened Grace and Charlie."

"Oh, wow!" Jerry breathed, awed. "Danny had a visit from the Men in Black!"

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Danny knew, even without opening his eyes, when Steve came into the hospital room. It felt like a storm moving in. He sighed.

"I have a headache, Steven. I have a concussion and I'm tired and I hurt. Please, can we not do this tonight?"

"Okay, fine," Steve said. "You don't want to do this tonight. Fine." He headed for the door again but swerved aside and came back at the last minute. "I'd just like to know why you aren't talking to me? Huh? I mean, you get a threatening visit from a couple of strange people-or at least you think you do. We haven't found anything yet to suggest that they actually exist, outside of your head. But say they're real. Fine. I mean, you obviously think they're real. So whether they're real or not is really irrelevant. The point..the point _is_... They show up at your house and they threaten you. So what do you do? Do you call me, your partner, who is also supposedly your best friend, to have your back? No! You have HPD put out an APB for them and then you call a couple of teenagers and go sleep your way through a movie. And I don't even find out anything's going on until I get a phone call from your daughter telling me that you've been _hit by a car_! I mean, what the hell, Danny?"

"Is this your idea of not doing this tonight?" Danny asked. "Because this is not my idea of not doing this tonight. This, in fact, is pretty much the opposite of my idea of not doing this tonight. I'm in _pain_ , damnit! Is that so hard to understand?"

"Fine," Steve said again. "You don't want to talk to me. Fine. Maybe Captain Kirk can help you solve your problems." He left, slamming the door behind him.

Danny jumped at the sound and winced. The nurse had promised to bring him something for the pain but that had been ten minutes ago and she had yet to return. His head was throbbing. He was sore from the impact with the car. He was depressed and exhausted. Steve was angry at him and he wasn't sure himself, anymore, what was real and what was only imagination.

Alone in the darkened hospital room, Danny Williams closed his eyes and wanted to weep.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

It was the scent of coffee that pulled him awake. The hospital room was dark. Being there only for observation, there were no machines around his bed with flickering indicators and glowing screens. The only illumination came from the red power button on the television, high up on the wall. It cast a crimson glow over the ceiling and in the faint light he could just make out a familiar silhouette seated in the chair beside his bed.

Steve McGarrett, all but invisible in dark clothes, sitting in darkness, shifted slightly. His boot scuffed lightly against the tile floor as he leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands.

Danny ran his tongue around inside his mouth, trying to find some moisture. His headache had mercifully gone, but he felt like it was lurking just around the corner and he moved cautiously, afraid that it would return.

"Steven?"

McGarrett set his coffee on the bedside table and gave Danny his full attention. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet and gentle.

"Hey. You all right? You need anything?"

Danny found the bed control and raised the head until he was almost sitting. "There any water around here anywhere?"

"Yeah. Hang on."

Ice rattled and clinked as Steve poured water from a pitcher into a glass and held it up for Danny to drink from. Danny tried to take the glass and Steve batted his hand away.

"No, you'll spill it. I got this. Just let me help, okay."

"Okay, fine! Thank you."

"Good. You need more? You good?"

"I'm good. Thanks."

Steve set the water down, picked up his coffee and took a sip.

"Babe, what are you doing here?" Danny asked him. "This isn't even serious. I'm not dying here. You should be home asleep by now."

"Yeah, well," Steve shrugged slightly, "I figured I ought to keep an eye on you. You know? In case an alien bug decided to burst out of your stomach or something."

That surprised a laugh out of the detective that strained his sore ribs and re-awakened a brief throbbing in his head. "I hate you," he giggled. "I hate you so much right now."

"I know." Steve rose, restless, and crossed to the window to peer out between the slats of the blinds. When he returned to his seat a sliver of light came with him, a faint, greenish-white iridescence from a security light. It touched his hair and highlighted the planes of his face. He set the coffee down again and returned to his earlier posture, elbows on his knees and his head ducked down. When he spoke again he was looking at the floor rather than at his partner.

"I have a mild case of chronic radiation poisoning," he admitted. "I'm not dying from it, at least not directly and not right away and probably not at all. The most serious consequence of the poisoning is a higher risk that I might someday develop cancer. There are a few symptoms I have to deal with that can mostly be managed with medication, diet, and exercise. They include headaches, insomnia, mood swings and nausea caused by the fact that the radiation damaged some of my internal organs. Specifically, it damaged my liver. Your- _our_ -liver. I'm sorry."

"What in the hell are you sorry about?" Danny demanded.

"Because...you gave me half your liver and I broke it."

Danny thunked his head back against the pillow and huffed out a breath. "Ah, hell. I should have been the one to handle that uranium."

"What? No, that's stupid. Then you'd have radiation poisoning."

"Do you have another option in mind? Because I was there, Babe, and I gotta tell ya, if that bomb had gone off it would have broken a hell of a lot more than my liver."

Steve gave a put-upon sigh. "You don't understand."

"Then _explain_ it to me."

"Danny-" Steve broke off and took a drink of coffee. He was obviously buying time and Danny let him, waiting patiently.

"Look," the Navy SEAL said finally, "when you gave me half your liver to save my life that was...it was amazing. It was this huge, generous gesture. Being on the receiving end of something like that is, it's life-changing. Not just the near-death experience, but to know, to really understand, that someone cares enough about you to do a thing like that. It's...I don't even have words for everything it is. But one thing it is is, it's humbling. And, I don't know if you've ever noticed this or not, but I don't do humble very well."

Danny barked out a surprised laugh, then grabbed at his cracked ribs as they protested the movement. "Ow! Don't make me laugh."

"Laugh? What 'don't make me laugh'? I'm being serious here!"

"Right. Right. Sorry. Go on."

"I don't do humble very well," Steve repeated. "So I told myself that it was okay. That it was a _good_ thing that...that our bodies are compatible with one another."

"Oh, God. That sounds so dirty," Danny was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "I hope no one's eavesdropping. We'll never kill the rumors."

"Will you _stop_? Seriously! I'm pouring out my heart to you here and you're making stupid jokes already!"

"Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm serious here. No, really. I'm serious. This is my serious face."

Steve put a pillow over Danny's face and forged ahead. "I told myself it was a good thing, because...because I love you that much too. And if you ever needed me to, I could return the favor. You know? Half a liver, a kidney, some bone marrow... You get the idea? But I can't now."

Danny pushed the pillow aside and looked at his friend, serious himself now.

"Blood," Steve said. "People donate blood all the time. They give it to strangers. Hell, they never even ask who's getting it. They just go into a blood drive and trade a pint of blood for a couple of cookies and a paper cup of juice. Maybe a tee shirt, if they get lucky." He ran one hand over his head and when he spoke again there was grief in his voice. "I can't give you blood, Danny. You got _hit by a car_ tonight. If you'd been bleeding out, needed a transfusion, I couldn't have saved you."

Danny considered this. Quiet footsteps came down the hall, passed his room and continued into the distance.

"So, what? You think I just keep you around for spare body parts?"

Steve took another sip of coffee and let himself chuckle. "You're saying you don't?"

"Not any more. You _irradiated_ them!"

That drew a real laugh.

"I gave you my liver because you're my friend. You're my best friend and I need you around. Please don't take yourself away from me."

There was a long, comfortable silence between them.

"Do we hug now?" Steve asked finally.

"Don't you dare. I have cracked ribs here."

Steve finished his coffee and threw the cup away, his toss accurate even in the pitch black room. "Your neighbor saw the people in the black Continental. HPD hasn't found it yet. We did confirm that the lady who hit you was blinded by some kind of red light being shined into her eyes. A traffic camera caught it, but we weren't able to determine where the light originated. Listen, Danny. You're right. Something very weird is going on. I don't know what it is, but we're going to get to the bottom of it. All right?"

"Well all right then."


	6. Plan 9 From Outer Space

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note:

Chapter 6: Plan Nine From Outer Space

"I spoke to Grace already," Danny said from the bathroom, where he was showering and changing. "She called while you were out picking up my clothes. And thank you, by the way. How's my house look?

Steve frowned, pushing his lips out. "It looks fine. How did you expect it to look?"

"I don't know. I haven't been home in so long, I've forgotten what it looks like."

Steve chuckled and shook his head. "So what are Grace's plans for the day? Do we need to put a bodyguard on her?"

"She's going to stay at the Grovers' and hang out with Will and Renee today. She and Will want to go online and research UFO's and aliens. I don't want them to maybe draw attention to themselves so I said no but then she did that thing with her eyes and I caved."

"I thought you were talking to her on the phone?"

Danny came out of the bathroom dressed and combing his hair. "The thing with her eyes is so powerful, I can hear it over the phone. Like when you have a face."

"I don't have a face."

"You totally have a face, Babe."

"I don't have a face. Did you get your meds? Do we ned to stop at the pharmacy?"

"I got everything. We're gonna be late to work. Come on."

"Don't worry about it. You're still on concussion watch anyway." Steve's phone rang. He glanced down at it, then slid his finger across the face to answer. "Yeah, Lou? What's up? Huh. Did they say what they want?...No, I got no idea...We're on our way now...well, tell them to keep their underpants on. We'll get there when we get there. Okay, see you in a bit then. Bye."

"What's up?" Danny asked.

"I don't know. Lou says there're a couple of Navy guys looking for me."

"Not Air Force?"

"Why would the Air Force be looking for me?"

"I dunno. Project Blue Book maybe?"

They headed for the door but a nurse with a wheelchair cut them off and gave Danny a pointed look.

"Oh, no," he said. "I do not need that thing. I'm fine."

"Sorry, hon. Hospital policy. If you want out of here you have to park your cute little fanny in this chair and let me push you down to the door."

He sighed and appealed to his best friend. "Steven?"

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Pull rank. We have ways and means, right?"

"You want me to pull rank? You really want me to pull rank?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, fine. Detective Sergeant Williams, park your cute little fanny in that chair and let the lady push you to the door. That's an order."

Danny sank into the chair with a sigh. "I hate you so much right now."

"I know, Danno. I know."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

They arrived at headquarters to find a pair of high-ranking Navy Intelligence officers pacing in front of the smart table. The minute they walked in the two officers swung around and closed in on Steve.

"Lieutenant Commander. Your office. Now."

Steve shrugged and led the way into his office. Danny tagged along.

"Is this a private party or can anyone come?" he asked.

The younger of the two Navy Intelligence guys turned to him. "We'll call you if we need you," he said and closed Steve's door in Danny's face. Then he went around and drew the blinds over the windows so no one outside could see in.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Steve asked sarcastically, seating himself behind his desk.

The more senior of the two officers leaned over the desk and stared at him, eye to eye. "Commander, in deference to your military service and your position with this task force, I'm going to give you a chance to explain yourself before I arrest you."

Steve sat up straight. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"You think wrong."

"Do you really need me to spell it out for you?"

"That would be certainly be helpful."

"This morning, at 1:17 AM, you entered a restricted compound at Pearl and attempted to access a research area for which you do not have clearance. I want to know what the hell you were doing there and why you didn't find it necessary to go through channels."

"I did no such thing!"

"You did."

"I didn't. At 1:17 this morning I was right here, going over traffic and security camera footage to try to determine who arranged for my second in command to be run down by a car last night."

The Intelligence guy snorted. "Well, your hand, your eye, and your voice were at Pearl."

"No. All my body parts were right here with me, where they belong."

"Do you have anybody to back up that story?"

"Sure. Lou Grover, Jerry Ortega, the night security crew, the cleaning people who were trying to work around us, and half a dozen members of the Honolulu Police Department who came and went throughout the evening."

"What time did you arrive here?"

"I got here about 9 PM. And before you ask, I left a little after 2 AM. You can check the security cameras."

"Where did you go from here? Did you go directly home?"

"No, I went to the hospital. I spent the rest of the night there, sitting with my friend."

"Is he badly injured?"

"He's gonna be all right. A little pissed that you just shut the door in his face, but otherwise he's gonna be fine."

"If he's not badly injured, why would you spend the night at the hospital?"

"He's my best friend. He was hit by a car. What part of this is hard for you to understand?"

The officer frowned. "I suppose he'll back up your story?"

"He won't know what time I got there because he was sleeping, but he can tell you that I was there when he woke up in the middle of the night, yeah. And you can check the hospital security cameras. I didn't sneak in. Also, there was an HPD officer stationed on his door."

The officer stood back, then sat down in one of Steve's visitor chairs. His associate took the other. "We're going to need to see that video. I'll have someone contact the hospital for their video as well."

"Certainly, if I can see some identification to prove that your'e really with Navy Intelligence."

The older man hesitated, then conceded that it was a reasonable question. "Of course," he said, pulling out his military ID and passing it over. His colleague did the same and Steve studied them.

"Captain Davis. Commander Logan. What exactly happened last night that brought you here? Wait!" he held up his hand. "I'd like to bring my team in on this. You can get them to vouch for me while we're at it."

Davis hesitated.

"We've handled sensitive data before," Steve said. "If someone's trying to frame me for attempting to steal state secrets, I'd like for Five-0 to take part in the investigation."

"Fine. Bring them in."

Steve went to the door. His team, what remained of it, lingered uncertainly around th smart table, clearly curious about what was going on in his office. He waved them in. No one needed a second invitation.

"Lou, Jerry," he said, "you want to tell these gentlemen what I was doing about a quarter after one last night?"

Lou shrugged. "He was here with us, going over video footage."

"Because you were struck by a car, correct?" Davis asked, turning to Danny.

"Unfortunately."

"And Commander McGarrett spent the night with you at the hospital after he left here?"

"I don't know what time he got there, but yeah. When I woke up in the middle of the night, he was there."

"And what was he doing?"

"At the hospital? Drinking coffee and watching me sleep. It was actually kind of stalker-ey."

"Whatever," Steve said. "You love the attention."

"And you believe that you were hit intentionally?" Davis pursued.

"It was aliens," Jerry volunteered.

"Jerry," Lou hissed. "Ix-nay on the aliens when you're talking to the avy-Nay!"

Steve grabbed the conversation back before it could veer off track. "You were just about to explain to me what this was all about," he reminded Davis.

The two Navy men exchanged a look. Davis sighed and spoke. "Last night-or, rather, early this morning, someone bypassed the security cameras and entered a restricted area on base at Pearl Harbor. They attempted to access a storage compartment where certain top-secret projects are stored. The compartment is triple protected. It can only be opened by authorized personnel and to do that they have to provide a handprint, a retina scan, and voice verification of a security code. The person who entered this morning provided a hand scan, a retina scan, and a security code. The handprint, the retina scan, and the voice speaking the code were all in our data base but did not belong to anyone who was authorized to access that compartment. They belonged, Commander McGarrett, to you."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Pinky! Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Steve gave Danny a weird look. "What?"

"Pinky! Pinky and the Brain!...No? Seriously? My _God_ you had a deprived childhood!"

The Navy Intelligence men had gone and Danny, Lou, and Jerry were gathered in Steve's office, discussing the mystery they'd left behind.

Lou followed Danny, even if Steve didn't. "You're thinking that there's got to be a connection to your aliens. Otherwise, it's just too much of a coincidence."

"Exactly."

"So, let me just be real clear on this, our working theory is _aliens_?"

"You got something better?"

Lou sat back and held up a hand. "No, no. I'm with you. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm with you."

"So you think, what?" Jerry asked. "You think the aliens wanted something from the secret government research and they thought the Commander had clearance so they kidnapped him and cloned him?"

Steve leaned forward and thunked his head on the wood of his desk. "Can we try to keep our theories a little more grounded in normality?"

"Everything that's happened and you're lookin for normal?" Danny asked, but he was laughing under the words. "I've got a question for you. Does your buddy Jacobson have the authority to access that storage compartment?"

"Jacobson?" Steve frowned. "I don't know. Maybe. Why?"

"Who's Jacobson?" Lou asked.

"Lance Jacobson," Steve explained. "One of my old SEAL buddies."

"He just got promoted to full commander," Danny explained. That get together night before last was a celebration."

"You think there's a connection?"

Danny stood and started pacing, needing movement to stimulate his thinking process. "I think there might be. You were really drunk, Babe. How much of that night do you even remember?"

Steve thought about it. "Not a lot, honestly. How much did I have to drink, do you know?"

"Not that much, actually. Six, seven beers, tops."

"Seven beers? I got drunk on seven beers? That's preposterous!"

"I know. I figured, sorry, I figured it was your liver giving out on you. But now I'm wondering if you might have been roofied." He turned his attention to Lou and Jerry. "Jacobson was razzing Steve, rubbing it in that he outranks him now."

"He doesn't outrank me," Steve said. "He doesn't outrank me on the grounds that I am no longer in the military and his rank is therefore irrelevant."

Danny, still talking to the other two, gestured at Steve. "And this is pretty much how the whole night went."

"Besides," Steve persisted, "if I'd stayed in the military, like he did, I'd have had at least one more promotion by now. Probably more than one. I'd totally still outrank him."

"Exhibit B," Danny sighed. "The other SEALS weren't sticking to beer-"

"I know my limits," Steve said. "I know my liver isn't what it used to be. I'm not an idiot."

Danny reached across the desk and patted him on the head like a dog. "-weren't sticking to beer and by and by everyone was pretty well plastered. Jacobson went to the john and Steven here stole his dress coat off his chair and put it on and refused to give it back. Jacobson ordered and threatened and cried a little bit and Steve refused and taunted him and made fun of him. The other guys all jumped in, egging them on. Steven drank one more beer after that-some guy very kindly bought them all another round and brought them over himself, already open. To thank them for their service. Steve got really goofy after that and everyone was getting stupid so I decided it was time to take Dopey home and put him to bed."

"Dopey? That's not a very nice thing to call me, Danno."

"I say it with love, Babe. My point is that if someone wanted to grab Jacobson and they didn't know which one he was, they could have gotten Steve by mistake."

"If he got goofy after the last beer, then maybe there was more than beer in that bottle," Lou suggested.

"And if there was, there might still be traces of whatever drug it was in the bottom of the bottle. Steven, you taken your trash out since night before last?"

"No, of course not. When have I had time to take the trash out? I haven't been home any more than you have."

"But why would they need to drug the commander?" Jerry asked. "If they're aliens, couldn't they just use mind control?"

That stumped them all and they sat there for a couple of minutes looking at one another.

"You know, Jerry," Danny said at last, "you might be right. But if they did, we have no way of finding out. So, for now, let's stick with the thing that we can actually run a test for."

"Right." Steve stood. "So we need to go back to my house and get the bottle."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve and Danny rode in the Camaro, Steve driving, of course, and Lou and Jerry followed in Lou's SUV. When they pulled up behind the Camaro, Jerry leaned over to Lou, his eyes on Steve, who had gotten out of the car and was wandering around the front yard.

"Do you think Steve's, um, walking funny, maybe?"

Lou gave him a look. "Walking funny? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I don't know, it's just," Jerry looked down at his lap and twiddled his thumbs. "It's just that they say a lot-abductees, I mean-they say that the aliens, you know...?" He made a circle with his left thumb and forefinger and poked his right indes finger into it.

"Probed him?" Lou asked, eyebrows climbing. "You're watching Steve's ass, wondering if he's walking funny because he got probed by aliens?"

Jerry chewed on his lip and wouldn't meet his eyes.

"Oh, hell no," Lou said. "I'm not having this conversation." He got out of the truck and, with Jerry tagging along after him, went over to meet Steve and Danny.

They started up the walkway, but Jerry hung back.

"You guys go on and check the inside. I'll look around out here, if that's all right?"

"Sure, Jer," Steve said. "Whatever makes you happy."

Jerry moved away, studying the ground as he disappeared around the house. Steve, Danny, and Lou went inside.

"The lamp's gone," Danny said immediately. "Was it broken? Did you throw it away?"

"I don't know if it was broken. I didn't throw it away. It's just gone," Steve told him.

"You don't seem surprised."

"I noticed it when I came back for your shoes. I looked everywhere. I don't understand why anyone would take it. It's old but not old enough to be collectible. It's not valuable."

"Maybe it got broke when they hit Danny with it," Lou suggested. "Maybe they took it because they didn't want there to be anything here to substantiate his story. If it was just gone, you might not realize it right away and when you did realize it was gone, you might have just thought it got stolen. Or that he broke it and threw it away himself."

"Plus," Danny suggested, "maybe they were worried it had DNA on it."

"Don't mention that to Jerry," Steve said. "He would totally freak out at the thought of alien DNA."

"But if they did put something in your beer to make you more, shall we say, cooperative," Lou reasoned, "and they took the lamp to keep you from figuring out they were here, doesn't it stand to reason that they'd have taken the empty beer bottle too? If they were that determined not to leave any evidence?"

"Could be," Steve agreed.

"Could be," Danny seconded. "But maybe, if we're lucky, they took the wrong beer bottle."

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked.

"You were drinking Longboard," Danny said.

"I always drink Longboard."

"Right. And you brought that last one home with you, even though it was almost empty. I had to wrestle it away from you. You claimed it was a dead soldier and you were bringing it home to bury. While I was getting rid of it, you opened another one out of the refrigerator. I wrestled that one away too and, after I got you put to bed, I sat and drank it myself. I drank it in the front room, with the lights off, and I left the empty bottle on the coffee table. There is no bottle there now. Did you throw it away Steven?"

"I did not," Steve said, with dawning comprehension. "I didn't see any beer bottle there. I'd have noticed it when I came down yesterday morning, when I saw the throw pillows and your shoes on the floor."

"So you think they took that bottle instead of the doctored one?" Lou asked. "Where did you put the one Steve was drinking?"

Danny led the way to the lanai and lifted the lid of the trash can. "I put it right..." he pulled a latex glove and an evidence bag out of his pocket, put on the glove and took a beer bottle from the trash can. "...here," he finished, putting it in the bag. "Now, if we can just get this to the lab, maybe they can tell us if there was something besides beer in this bottle."

"Oh my God you guys!" Jerry had been down to the beach. He came running up now, panting with exertion, his face red and his eyes wide. "You have to come see this!"

They followed him across the back lawn to the beach. Just in front of the two wooden chairs there he stopped and pointed. "It's a crop circle!"

"This isn't a crop," Danny pointed out pedantically. "It's a beach. Ergo that would have to be a beach circle."

"Pretty damn weird, whatever you call it," Lou said.

Halfway between the chairs and the ocean there was a large circle. Within that circle, the top layer of sand had been fused into glass.

"What the _hell_ is going on here?" Steve demanded. "Anybody got any ideas about this?"

Jerry made a face, drawing his lips in and looking down at the ground. "I have an idea but I think you're not going to like it."

Steve considered, looking from Danny to Lou and then back to Danny again. He shrugged and frowned. "Give me what you got, Jer."

"A lot of times, when people have had close encounters of the third kind-"

"That was a movie," Danny interrupted.

"It was the name of a movie. The movie was named after the phenomenon. There are three kinds of close encounters, according to the system of categorizing them created by the astronomer J Allen Hynek. People have expanded his list to include as many as seven basic types and over a hundred sub-catagories, but he doesn't accept any but the original three. The first kind is seeing a UFO at a distance. The second kind also involves seeing a UFO but with some kind of accompanying phenomenon, like, for example, a crop circle. The third kind is when someone who sees a UFO also encounters an animate creature."

"So Steve and I would have had a close encounter of the third kind," Danny said.

"Right. Well, if you want to include the new catagories, you would have had an encounter of the third kind and Steve would have had an encounter of the fourth kind."

"Let me guess. That's when someone is kidnapped by aliens?"

"Right. But hopefully not an encounter of the seventh kind. That's where a human mates with an alien."

"Don't even think about it. Just tell me, where are you going with this?" Steve asked.

"A lot of times, when someone has a close encounter of the third kind, they find it hard to remember the details of what happened. Sometimes, though, they can recall it all under hypnosis."

"Hypnosis?" Steve asked skeptically.

Jerry nodded. "I know a guy who hypnotizes abductees," he said.

"Of course you do," Danny muttered.

"He'd be absolutely fascinated to help us."

"Is he trustworthy?" Danny asked.

Jerry blinked. "You mean compared to Toast and Sang Min and-"

"Okay, point taken."

"It's an...interesting idea, Jer," Steve said. "But it won't work. I mean, I'd be willing to let him try it, but I'm telling you right now. It's not gonna work. I'm much too strong-willed and too in control of my mind for anyone to ever be able to hypnotize me."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"So you're a Navy SEAL, commander?"

"I am."

"I like seals. I like the way they bark when they're happy. Are you happy, commander?"

"Sure. I'm happy."

"Can you bark for me? Bark like a happy seal.

"Yarf!" Steve said. "Yarf! Yarf! Yarf!..."


	7. Dr Strange

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: Oops! I forgot to write an author's note yesterday. Not that I have anything particularly pertinent to say except thank you for reading and I hope you like this.

Chapter 7: Dr. Strange

"Stop," Danny said. "Nope. Sorry. As hilarious as this has the potential to be, we're not going to do this. Steve trusts us to have his back. We're not going to take advantage of the situation for our own amusement."

"Aw, man," Lou said. "If this was you being hypnotized, you know McGarrett would be totally down with making you bark like a seal."

"Maybe, maybe not. But would that argument work for your kids? Because it wouldn't work for mine."

Lou sighed mightily. "Okay, fine."

Danny turned to the hypnotist Jerry had introduced them to. "As him about the abduction."

The hypnotist, a thin, pale man in his middle thirties with wide eyes and a receding hairline, was named Leland. Jerry had made it a point to tell them that he didn't live in his mother's basement, but was married and had an actual job writing ad copy for an Internet marketplace. The significance of that particular bit of information was almost immediately called into question, however, when Leland's wife phoned to make sure he'd remembered to wear pants.

Whatever else one might say about him, he did know his stuff when it came to hypnotism. He'd drawn a reluctant Steve McGarrett in with a picture of a handgun.

 _"I was thinking about buying a gun. What do you think of this one?"_

 _Steve glanced down at the picture. "Do you have any experience with firearms? Because this isn't really a good choice for a beginner."_

 _"No, I don't know anything about them. Are you familiar with this gun?"_

 _"Sure. I used to have one."_

 _"Are they hard to learn about? Do they have a lot of parts? I suppose you have to take them apart to clean them?"_

 _"Yes, and you should never shoot a gun until you know how to take it apart and put it back together again."_

 _"How do you take this one apart?"_

 _Steve described, with a quiet enthusiasm, the process necessary to break down the gun and reassemble it._

 _"Is it better to do that in natural sunlight or artificial light? Which do you prefer?"_

 _"Well...either really. I like to break my guns down inside, though. I've done it too often outside and you have to worry about sand blowing into the mechanism."_

 _"I bet it looks pretty, the light reflecting off the oiled metal?"_

 _"Yeah, it does. It really does."_

 _"Tell me about a time you broke down your gun."_

 _Steve complied and Leland nodded along, asking questions and drawing him out. "Where were you? Was it hot or cold? How did you feel? Were there any scents in the air? What could you hear? Are you sleepy, Commander? You sound like you're getting very sleepy..."_

"Ask him about the abduction," Danny said.

"Commander, I want you to remember what you were doing night before last. Do you remember that?"

"Sure. I was out with the guys." He laughed.

"What's funny?"

"I made Jacobson cry."

"How'd you do that?"

"I took his jacket, with his fancy new insignia on it. Told him it's mine now."

"And that made him cry?"

"Yeah. Ha. He cried."

"He cried?" Lou echoed. "A commander in the Navy SEALS _cried_ because his buddy took his jacket?"

"Beer tears," Danny said.

"Ah."

Danny and Lou both nodded. Jerry looked from one to the other and then nodded as well, pretending he knew what beer tears were.

"Okay, Commander, let's move forward a little bit. It's late at night and you're at home, in bed. Do you remember going to bed?"

"Yeah. Danny put me to bed. He tucked me in like I was Charlie. He's such a dad." Steve sighed. "He didn't read me a story, though."

"Okay...well, let's move forward a little bit more. Did you wake up during the night at all?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Can you tell me about that?"

Steve's voice went distant. He was staring past the men in the room, seeing something visible only to him. "Everything is blue," he said.

"Blue?"

"Glowey blue."

"I don't understand...?"

"There's a light in the room. Everything's blue. And something's humming. I can feel it vibrating up through the bed, like when you're on a ship and the engine is running. On a ship, you get used to it. You don't even notice. But I haven't been on a ship in a while. There's an engine running in my house and everything's blue."

"How do you feel, Commander?"

"Weird. I should jump up and go find out what's going on, but I just don't really care that much. I should care that there's an engine in my house. Why don't I care?"

"I don't know. What happened next?"

"I looked around and there were things."

"Things?"

"Kind of people-ey things. Four of them. They're all around my bed."

"Can you describe them to me?"

Steve ran a hand across his head. "They're humanoid. About five-and-a-half to six feet tall. They have huge heads with tiny chins. Big eyes. No ears or noses and little mouths without any lips. Long, skinny arms. One of them has two hands on each arm. That's weird."

"That is weird. What color is their skin?"

"I can't tell. Everything's blue."

"Okay. And what are the creatures doing, Commander?"

They're around my bed. They're talking to me without moving their mouths. I asked them how they did that and they said it's mental telepathy. They want me to come with them?"

"How do you feel about that?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know. I don't really feel anything. It's weird."

"What happened next?"

"They have a flying surfboard. I think the one with four hands is controlling it. It's got an iPad. They put me on the surfboard and strapped me down. We went downstairs. Danny was sleeping on the couch and they woke him up. He got upset and tried to save me but they hit him with the lamp. I should be really pissed about that. Why am I not pissed?"

"I don't know. How do you feel?"

"Like I have to do everything they say. They said to go to sleep so I went to sleep."

"And did you wake up again before morning?"

"Yeah, I did."

"I want you to think about that now. Where are you?"

"I don't know. I'm in a round room somewhere. There are windows all around the walls and banks of instruments, like on a plane. There are more of the creatures now. Some of them are sitting at the controls and some of them are up moving around. There are still four of them around me. I'm sitting up now, in a weird chair, and they're dipping my hand in some kind of goop."

"What does the goop feel like?"

"Goop. What do you expect goop to feel like?"

"Okay...what else are they doing?"

"They shined a light in my eyes and they're asking me questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"They want my security code for the Ocean's Eleven project."

"Did you tell them?"

"I didn't really want to but they kept asking and I guess it doesn't really matter that much."

"So you told them your security code?"

"Yeah."

"What was the code?" Danny asked. The others looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. "He has more than one code. One of them has been compromised. We need to know what it is so he's aware of that."

Leland turned back to Steve and repeated the question.

"It's 'fiftyoverthree.'" Steve answered.

Danny put a hand over his mouth and ducked his head. "Of course it is. He said there were windows all around the room. Ask him if he could see anything out of them?"

"Commander," Leland said, "did you look out any of the windows? Could you see anything you recognized?"

"I can see out all of them," Steve said. "It looks like we're over Honolulu. All I can see is the tops of buildings."

"He's in a spaceship," Jerry breathed.

"Maybe," Danny said skeptically. "Ask him if he can hear or feel any engines."

Leland did so and Steve shook his head. "No. There's nothing."

"Some form of silent propulsion?" Jerry guessed.

"What was the engine McGarrett heard and felt at his house, then?" Lou asked.

"What else did the aliens do, Commander?" Leland asked.

Steve shrugged. "Nothing. That was it. Then they told me to forget everything and go back to sleep. So I did."

"Okay, and what happened the next time you woke up?"

"The next time I woke up it was morning."

Leland looked around the rest of Five-0. "Anyone have any more questions? No? Listen, normally I tell people that when they wake up they'll remember everything, but the aliens specifically told him to forget. I don't know what kind of mind control they were using and I don't want to mess with his head, so I'm going to skip that part."

"Probably just as well to skip the part where you had him bark like a seal too," Lou Grover observed wisely.

The hypnotist nodded and turned back to Steve. "Commander, I'm going to count backwards from ten. When I get to one you're going to wake up. You're going to feel calm and well-rested."

Leland counted backwards from ten. When he reached one Steve McGarrett yawned and stretched. He stood up, rubbed the back of his neck and looked around at his friends.

"Well, this was a waste of time," he said. "I told you I was too strong-willed to be hypnotized."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"The Ocean's Eleven Project?" Steve said. "The _Ocean's Eleven_ Project?"

Leland had gone and Steve, Danny, Lou, and Jerry were sitting around a table in headquarters discussing the case.

"Yeah, does that mean anything?"

"Maybe that was the name of one of the projects stored in that compartment at Pearl," Steve said. "I'll ask Davis. It doesn't mean anything to me, though."

"Yeah, I didn't figure it did," Danny said. "You're gonna want to change your Netflix password, by the way."

"That was his Netflix password?" Jerry said. "You know his Netflix password?"

"Don't most couples know one another's passwords?" Lou snarked.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Funny. We've _never_ heard that before." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned forward. "Yes, I know his password. It's a not-so-subtle dig at my beloved home."

"What?"

"Fifty over three," Steve explained. "Hawaii is fifty. New Jersey is only three."

"But why did you give them your Netflix password, do you suppose?" Jerry persisted.

"I guess the code name Ocean's Eleven reminded me of the movie and that reminded me of Netflix. Anyway, I wasn't going to give them any important security codes. I've had training covering that exact scenario." He caught the look they were giving him. "Okay, okay, that exact scenario but with humans instead of aliens. Is that better?"

"So are we accepting that these are aliens, then?" Lou asked.

"We're _calling_ them aliens," Steve hedged. "Until and unless we come up with something better to call them."

"So they wouldn't have succeeded with Jacobson either?" Danny asked thoughtfully.

"No, absolutely not."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. He would have probably given them a prearranged code that would have signaled to the Navy that it had been taken from him under duress. It would have triggered an immediate lockdown and an armed response."

"Hmm. I bet they didn't know that."

"What would aliens want with our military research anyway?" Jerry asked. "Could they be trying to protect us from ourselves, do you think?"

"It would help if we knew what was stored in that compartment at Pearl," Danny said.

"Can I ask you a question?" Jerry said to Danny, almost shyly.

"Sure. Of course you can."

"What was it like meeting the Men in Black?"

"Men in black? You mean the weirdos at my house? It was a man and a woman."

"Yeah. Sometimes Men in Black are women, but they're called Men in Black anyway."

"I noticed you say that like it's a title or something. Are you referring to the movie, because I'm pretty sure that was just made up."

"The movie was made up, but it referred to a real phenomenon. A lot of times people who've had encounters with UFOs, even without seeing aliens, will get strange visits afterwards from vaguely menacing people. They're always dressed in black and they drive black cars. They act awkward, like they don't know how to behave like a human. Sometimes if one of them is a female, they'll grope one another in front of the percipient-"

"Yes!" Danny interrupted him. "Yes! They did that. Right on my front porch."

"They _groped_ each other?" Lou made a face. "What did you do?"

"I yelled at them not to. What do you think I did?"

"He yelled at the Men in Black," Jerry muttered to himself in what sounded like a mixture of awe and horror. "Do you think maybe, just asking here, that's why they tried to kill you?"

"Is that a normal thing?" Steve asked.

"You mean aliens trying to kill people or people wanting to kill Jersey?" Lou asked.

"Ha ha," Danny said. "Very funny."

"No, I'm serious," Steve said. "Is it a part of the alien, I don't know, _mythology_ that they kill people who don't cooperate with them?"

"Not that I'm aware," Jerry said uncertainly. "I mean, there are stories of practically anything you can imagine. But none that I know of that seem particularly credible. Although, there are a _lot_ of people who disappear every day..."

"If I wasn't a member of this task force and hadn't already claimed that something weird was going on, would anyone have given that woman's story any credence? That someone shined a light in her eye and made her hit me? Or would it just have been written off as a careless accident?"

"Good question," Steve said.

"And another thing," Danny persisted. "If these aliens were using you to try to break into Pearl and steal something, who's to say they haven't used the same technique before. Not with the military, obviously, because of the whole 'conditioned not to give security codes to space invaders' thing. But other things? You did say," he turned to Jerry, "that there's been a rash of UFO sightings in the last few months. Were there any other reports of abductions? Have any of the abductees been involved in thefts of any kind?"

"I don't know. I could run some searches and talk to some people."

"Good plan," Steve said. "You do that. Look for anyone who's been implicated in any kind of robbery because their security codes or handprints or anything were used during the break-in. Also look for anyone who's died under suspicious circumstances after reporting an alien abduction. Or, for that matter, after being implicated in any kind of robbery involving their handprints or security codes, etc. You said the current wave of UFO sightings goes back eight months, right? Look back that far and let me know if you find anything."

"And what are we going to do?" Danny asked.

"I know what I'm going to do," Lou said.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. If you'll tell me where you had this little drinking party, I'm going to go see if I can get security footage and see if I can get a shot of the guy who bought you all that last round. He could be the link we need."

"It was the Leaky Tiki, over on Fifth," Steve said. "And that's a good idea. I'm going to go track down Davis and see if I can find out what was in that locker, at least generally."

"You think he'll tell you?" Danny asked.

"If he won't, Jacobson will. I need to return his jacket anyway. It'll be better if I go alone, though. He won't feel so bad about telling me things I'm not supposed to know if I don't throw it in his face that I'm going to tell all of you as well."

"Okay," Danny said. "I know when I'm not wanted. I guess I will-"

"Go home and get some rest," Steve said. "You just got out of the hospital."

"I'm not going home. I'm fine."

"Do I have to smack you in the ribs to remind that you're not?"

"I'm fine enough. I don't want to go home."

"Well you-wait! Are you afraid the Men in Black will come back?"

"No!" Danny tried to sneak a look at his best friend, to see how he was taking the denial, and realized Steve didn't believe him. "Maybe. Look! You have to admit it's a little freaky. Right?"

Steve stared at him for several seconds, then ducked his head in a concession. "Fine. It's a little freaky. So stay here and take a nap on your couch again. Keep Jerry company. Call Grace and see if she and Will found anything interesting online." He stepped close to his friend and lay a hand on his shoulder. "Seriously, take it easy for a while. We've got this. Okay?"

Danny sighed and gave in. Jerry retreated to his own office in the basement. Steve and Lou both left and he was alone with his thoughts and a file of UFO footage that Jerry had sent to his phone.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Danny didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he woke up suddenly with the feeling that he wasn't alone in his office. He froze and looked around, moving only his eyes.

"Hey! You're awake! Cool!"

Danny jumped, then sat up. "Eric, what are you doing here? Have you just been sitting there watching me sleep? That's creepy. Don't be creepy."

"I was waiting for you to wake up. Hey! How come nobody told me you got kidnapped by aliens?"

"I didn't get kidnapped by aliens. Steve got kidnapped by _maybe_ aliens."

"How come you got hit over the head by aliens and nobody told me? We're family, right? I thought that meant something."

Danny sighed. "It does. I'm sorry. Things have just been really hectic lately."

The younger man bobbed his head to one side, the same kind of gesture his uncle might make. "Aw, that's okay. You just have to let me in on the whole alien hunt thing, though."

"I'm not sure that's possible, or even a good idea. Your mother will kill me if you wind up in another galaxy somewhere. How did you find out about it anyway?"

"Grace told me. But that's not why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"HPD found that black Continental abandoned at the airport, in economy long-term parking. Security cameras show it arriving just after eight PM last night. We've been studying all the cameras in the area, looking for anyone who fit your description of the drivers, but so far we've come up empty. However," he hesitated.

"However?" Danny prompted.

" _However_ there was a sighting of a UFO in the area around a quarter to nine."

Danny sighed. "Of course there was. Are they taking it back to the impound lot so you can go over it? The, uh, car. Not the UFO."

"They already have. We finished examining it almost an hour ago."

"Okay, and...?"

"And nothing. No fingerprints, no strands of hair, no trace of skin oils on the steering wheel. There's nothing to suggest that a human being has ever been inside that vehicle."


	8. Space Invaders

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfstone

Author's note: And here's chapter 8. This is the last chapter I had written ahead, but I'm on vacation from the day job right now, so I'll try to keep them coming on a daily basis. I know what's happening, but I haven't really got the story structure mapped out. I think it's coming together though, so keep your fingers crossed. And maybe your eyes. Also, I apologize in advance. You'll understand...

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 8: Space Invaders

"Ketamine," Steve said.

Lou had returned first, carrying a flash drive with the security video from the Leaky Tiki, but Steve was no more than five minutes behind him. Eric had gone back to the lab and Jerry was still holed up down in the basement.

"Ketamine?" Danny asked.

"Yup. Charlie Fong called me while I was on my way back. He found traces of ketamine in that bottle of Longboard. That explains the fog I was in. Dissociative behavior and depersonalization are side effects to ketamine's sedative properties. There's a catch, though. Another side effect of being dosed with ketamine is hallucinations."

"But I didn't drink anything that could have been doctored and I saw the same thing you did."

"At my house. Right. We both described the same thing, so that's solid. But this calls everything else I told you under hypnosis into question."

"Maybe, but it also tells us a few things. For one thing, we don't have to worry about Jerry's mind control theory anymore. They plain old roofied you. And for another, we know exactly who roofied you. It was the guy at the bar who bought you all a round to thank you for your service. It had to be."

"Right," Lou said. "And with luck, I've got him on camera right here." He held up the flash drive, then inserted it into a port on the table. "You say he bought you that beer just before you left? Probably the fastest way to find it is to start at the end of the night and rewind. What time did you leave?"

"About a quarter after two," Danny said. "I'd expected to be thrown out at two, actually, but the Leaky Tiki has a special license that allows them to stay open until four. None of Steve's friends were ready to leave when we did. I think they were planning on closing the place. Now I'm wondering if any of them got anything extra in their drinks."

"I wondered that too," Steve said. "Jacobson thinks not. They stayed until closing time, then wandered into a donut shop before they all went back to his place. He woke up around noon with a hangover, a blow-up sheep in his bed, and a malasada stuck to his face. Sobered up and made it to the base in time for his 3-11 shift."

"Did you find out what was in that compartment at Pearl?"

"They wouldn't give me any specifics, but in general it's an underwater delivery system for an explosive device. It's meant to be used in beach landings, sent in ahead of troops to clear the beachhead."

"Wow. I don't like the sound of that," Danny said.

"Yeah. Me either."

"Here we go," Lou said. He had the video from the Leaky Tiki up on the screen. The bar was dim and crowded. "Where were you guys?"

"Table in the corner," Danny said, pointing.

"Oh. Right." He zoomed in on them. "This is 2:30. You two are already gone by now. Let's just back it up a little."

He manipulated the computer and the people on the video walked, danced, and staggered their way backwards at high speeds for a minute or two until Steve and Danny backed into the picture. Danny dropped Steve into a chair, backed around the table and seated himself.

"Go back about another ten to fifteen minutes," Danny said.

Lou did as he asked, watching the timestamp, stopped the video at five minutes before two, and set it to play forward.

Steve was wearing a Navy dress blue jacket, hugging it to himself and pointing and laughing at a big guy across the table who was, from the body language, pleading and weeping. Danny sat in the corner, drinking bottled water and shaking his head every now and again.

A few minutes after the action started moving forward a man came over with a tray laden with drinks.

"That him?" Lou asked.

"That's him," Danny confirmed. "Is there a better shot of him?" The angle he was standing at, beside the table, his face was hidden by the brim of a baseball cap. They watched while he passed around the drinks. "Look at the way he's handling that Longboard."

When he went to hand Steve the beer, he picked it up from the top with his hand over the open bottle.

"Classic slight of hand move," Lou said. "Tuck a pill into the crease of your palm, then drop it in the drink when you pick it up. Let's see if we can get a better shot of this bastard." He fast-forwarded at double speed as the man chatted for a minute. When he turned away he was, just for a second, framed in the camera. Lou froze the image, isolated it, and fed it into a facial recognition program. A few minutes later the computer dinged. "Ha! Gotcha!"

They studied the driver's license photo and accompanying information that came up.

"Randall Carpenter," Steve read aloud. "He's a college student. Looks like he came here from Wyoming to study oceanography."

"So what's a college student from Wyoming doing slipping a roofie to a Navy SEAL?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," Steve said. He isolated the address from the driver's license and sent it to his phone. "Let's go ask him."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Carpenter leased a room in a battered old tenement just off the University campus. Steve drove Danny's Camaro there with Danny in the passenger seat talking to Grace on the phone.

"Yes, I know my name. And I know your name. Steve has been doing concussion checks which, truly, I do not even need anymore. Grace, honey, I promise you-I _promise_ you-I am fine. Yes! And Uncle Steve says he is very sorry and if anything should go wrong again-which it won't-but if it should he swears-he _pinky swears_ -that he will call you right away. He will call you _first_...okay, unless he needs to call for an ambulance, in which case he will call you second. Don't worry! You just have fun with Will. Good, clean, old-fashioned fun. Make taffy or play tic-tac-toe maybe. Okay, baby. I gotta go now. We're at the place with the thing. Okay? Remember, Danno loves you."

Steve pulled to a stop in front of the building and glanced into the rearview mirror, at Lou parking his SUV behind them. He tapped Danny on the shoulder and held up his hand. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Danny slapped his hand away and got out of the car.

The three men met at the Camaro's trunk to retrieve vests and check their weapons. Then they walked up to the old building and made their way inside. Carpenter's room was on the third floor, number 315. They climbed the stairwell, weapons held down and in front of them, and exited into a long hall lined with wooden doors. As they paced down the hall, counting room numbers, a door two doors before the one they wanted opened and a young woman in her late teens or early twenties peeked out.

"Go back inside and lock your door," Steve said with a motion of his head.

She gasped and disappeared.

They came to 315 and Steve rapped on the door with his knuckles and called out. "Randall Carpenter! Five-0! Open up!"

There was no answer so after waiting a moment Danny turned his back to the door and kicked it open. He spun around, gun at the ready, and ducked inside. Steve and Lou were right behind him. They covered the room, then relaxed and lowered their weapons. The room was no more than 15x12, with a bed, a desk, and a chair. There was a lamp and a laptop on the desk, a small TV mounted on the wall, and a set of shelves improvised from obviously stolen milk crates. An open door revealed a miniscule bathroom, complete with a tiny shower. The bathroom, like the larger main room, was clearly empty.

There was a nervous tap on the door behind them and the three men spun around, guns at the ready, to find the girl from down the hall with her hands in the air, looking terrified.

"What do you want?" Steve demanded. "I told you to stay inside."

"I know, but...are you looking for Carp?"

"Carp...? Randall Carpenter?"

She nodded.

"Yes, we are. Do you know where he is?"

"Yeah. He's in my room. He's freaking out."

They followed her back up the hall and into her room, where they found Randall Carpenter sitting in the corner with his head down and his arms wrapped around his knees. He looked up fearfully when they came in, then ducked again. He was literally shaking with terror.

"I know you," he said to his knees. "You and you. You're the two guys from the bar. Jacobson and his buddy." He glanced back up at Steve. "You're Jacobson."

Steve shot Danny a quick look. "How do you know that?" he asked, not bothering to correct him.

"The light was on you."

"The light?"

"I had a thing. A little electronic thing. Like a camera on a cell phone. It showed the bar. When I held it up, the light was on you."

"You put something in my beer," Steve said.

"I had to. I'm sorry. They told me I had to. I was scared what would happen if I didn't do what they said."

"Who told you to?"

He started rocking back and forth. "You won't believe me. You won't believe me. I'd tell you, but you won't believe me."

Steve went down on one knee next to him, caught him by the shoulder and held him still. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle but firm. "Look at me. Hey! Look at me." The kid looked up, met his eyes. " _Who_ told you?"

Carpenter's eyes widened. Tears streamed down his face.

"Aliens!"

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"It was pretty much the same story Steve told us under hypnosis."

The three main members of Five-0 had met Jerry at Kamekona's shrimp truck for a late lunch and they were catching him up on what they'd learned from Randall Carpenter.

"So how has your day gone?" Lou asked. "Did you find anything interesting?"

Jerry shrugged and twirled a shrimp around by the tail on his paper plate. "I haven't connected any of them to alien abductions, but I did find five different burglaries where the burglars used some form of security code or fingerprint or something from someone who had legitimate access. Four of them just look like they might be inside jobs, except that the thieves stole the same thing every time. In the fifth case they entered using a fingerprint from someone who couldn't have possibly been there."

"He have an iron-clad alibi?" Steve asked.

Jerry snorted, a half laugh with no humor attached. "Yeah. The best. He was killed in a car accident a few hours before the break in."

Danny swallowed and hunched his shoulders. He looked up from his garlic shrimp and asked, "an accident accident or an _accident_?"

"You mean...could it have been caused deliberately? You think the aliens killed him?"

"I think it's worth looking into. You said all five burglaries, the same thing was stolen? What was it?"

Jerry pressed his lips together and looked down at the table. "X-ray machines," he said.

There was a moment of silence while they processed the information. They looked at one another solemnly.

"X-ray machines contain cesium-137," Steve said.

"What would aliens want with cesium-137?" Lou asked.

"Maybe they need it to power their ship?" Jerry suggested.

"Maybe," Danny said, wadding up his napkin and tossing it down on the picnic table. "Or maybe they're making a dirty bomb."

"A dirty bomb that they want to deliver to a beach," Steve agreed.

"The question is, just what kind of aliens are these?"

Kamekona came over with a pitcher of a new sauce he'd concocted. "You gotta try this. I just invented it today."

"What about you, big guy?" Lou asked, turning to him. "You believe in aliens?"

"What, you mean like space aliens?"

"Yeah. You ever seen a UFO?"

"Huh. Not me, no. Hear a lot of people talking about a lot of strange things, though."

"Strange things like what?" Steve asked.

"Some surfers a couple of nights ago said they were out on the beach late and they saw this round disk come in, flying like a frisbee kind of. Like..." he demonstrated with his hands, in the process pouring his new sauce all over Danny.

Danny jumped up, swearing, and yanked off his soiled shirt. "What the hell is in that? That _burns_."

"It's my new peanut butter-mango-habanero sauce." He ran a finger around the rim of the pitcher and sucked the sauce off. "Good stuff, brah."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Steve pulled the Camaro up and parked in Danny's drive. As he turned off the engine his phone rang and, looking down, he saw that it was Lance Jacobson. Danny, still carrying his shirt, climbed out of the passenger side and paused.

"You coming in?"

"I'll be right there," Steve told him and answered the call.

"Yo! Smooth Dog. What the hell did you spill on my jacket?"

"I didn't spill anything on your jacket. I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about this stain on the lining of my jacket. The one _you_ stole from me. Now what the hell did you spill on it? Or are you going to blame that on aliens too?"

Steve rose out of the car, closed the door and turned to lean against it. "Actually..."

"No, man. C'mon. Seriously."

"I'm being serious. What does the stain look like? Where is it and how big is it?"

"It's on the lining. Looks like something in the pocket might have leaked through. It's a circle about as big as a dime. Why?"

"I was roofied that night, while I was wearing your jacket. The lab found traces of ketamine in my beer bottle and we traced the kid who put it there. He said aliens made him do it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. He thought I was you. They gave him a device, something like a cell phone camera, and he had to look through it and find the one of us that had a light on us in the image. If there was some kind of chemical marker on your jacket, the device could have been something to detect it."

"Well hell. What should I do?"

"I'm going to have someone from HPD come pick up that jacket. They'll run it to the lab and we'll see if they can find anything."

"You know, McGarrett, none of this would have happened if you'd just left my damned jacket alone."

"You know what? You're right." It was mid-afternoon. The sun shone down brightly and Danny's yard was festive with red and blue flowers Grace had planted for him. "If I hadn't stolen your jacket they'd have grabbed you instead. And maybe they'd have gotten caught, but maybe they'd have gotten away with the Ocean's Eleven project. And since we think they've already stolen a supply of cesium-137, I'm guessing that would probably be bad."

Jacobson was silent for a long minute.

"Cesium-137? Really? Damn."

"Yeah."

"Okay, but don't pretend that this came to light because you were clever or anything. Your drunk ass stumbled on this. You hear me?"

"Whatever."

Steve ended the call and phoned HPD while he was crossing the yard. He got to the front door, still standing ajar, and frowned. There was a harsh, acrid odor coming from the house.

"Danny? Danny!"

When there was no answer to his shout, he pushed the door open. The air inside made him cough and his eyes started watering. Putting the sleeve of his shirt over his mouth, he ventured in in search of his partner.

"Danny! Damnit, where are you?"

He cleared the living room and the kitchen. As he ventured into the bedroom, the odor intensified. The bathroom door was standing open and through watering eyes he could just make out a shoe lying on the floor inside the doorway. He surged forward and discovered the shoe was still on his partner's foot.

Danny lay, barely conscious, just inside the small bathroom. His eyes watered. His face was red and he was gasping and choking. Steve got him under the arms and dragged him outside as fast as he could.

As soon as they were both safely away, in the middle of the lawn, he called 911 for an ambulance and the fire department. Tossing the phone down, with the 911 operator still talking to him, he turned to his friend.

"Danny, you with me? Danny? Danno!"

Danny's chest had ceased to rise and fall. His lips were turning blue and his whole body shook with convulsions.

Steve grabbed the phone again. "He's not breathing," he shouted into it. "Tell them to hurry. He isn't breathing!"


	9. Battle Beyond the Stars

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's note: I know! I know! Really mean cliffhanger. Sorry! Here's the next chapter and, just remember, if you kill me I can't actually finish the story.

Chapter 9: Battle Beyond the Stars

Steve gripped his phone and looked down at it uncertainly. Danny had promised, on his behalf, that he would call Grace if anything happened. Pinky promised even. It wasn't a call he wanted to make.

Four feet away from him Danny himself lay on an orange rescue blanket in the middle of his yard. Two paramedics hovered over him. They'd put him on humidified oxygen and started an IV to administer albuterol. He was covered with a sheet. His clothing had been cut off and bagged for disposal and he'd been sprayed down with a light stream from a firehose to remove any traces of chemical from his skin and hair.

The fire captain and two of his men came out of Danny's house. They were wearing full protective gear and the captain carried a meter with him. With a worried glance at his downed friend, Steve paced over to meet them.

"Do you have any idea what he was exposed to?"

The captain nodded and pulled off his mask. He held up the meter. "Chlorine gas. The bathtub, sink, and toilet were all filled with a mixture of bleach and ammonia. The window was closed and the bathroom fan had been cranked shut and covered with plastic. You say he went in to change his shirt?"

"Yeah."

"The bathroom would have been full of it. He opened the door and got a lungful. He'd have been overcome within seconds."

Steve just stared at him for several seconds, processing. "This was an attempted murder."

The fireman nodded.

"How's Danny? Is he going to be okay?"

They turned to look at the fallen detective, then walked over closer to where he was being treated. The captain addressed his men.

"John, Roy? How's he doing?"

One of the paramedics looked up from listening to Danny's lungs. He hung the stethoscope around his own neck, sat back on his heels and addressed Steve. "I'd say you got him out just in time. We've got the bronchospasms under control and his oxygen saturation is looking at lot better. They're gonna want to keep him overnight, though, at least. One of the dangers of chlorine gas exposure is that the victim can develop a pulmonary edema even hours later."

"I have to call his daughter. Can I tell her that her dad's going to be okay?"

The paramedic considered. "I'd say that we're guardedly optimistic. There's no antidote for this. We can only provide support and palliative care until it clears out of his system. He's also going to have some chemical burns on his throat and in his airways. Which is why he needs to stop trying to talk." He said that last with a pointed look at Danny.

Danny, predictably, ignored him. He used the hand that didn't have an IV in it to pull up the oxygen mask and glared up at Steve blearily. "I'm naked in my front yard, Steven," he croaked. "Why am I naked in my front yard?"

"You're a raging exhibitionist," Steve told him. "Shut up and cooperate with the nice paramedics. I have to go hold up my end of a pinky promise."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Crime scene guys finished up at Williams' house," Lou said. The lock on the back door had been picked but there were no fingerprints or trace evidence of any kind. Fire department cleaned up the toxic soup and set up extraction fans to clear out the last of the fumes. You know this thing made the national news?"

"I know," Steve said. "Chin called me. He saw it in San Francisco." He hesitated. "It would have been wrong of me to pretend Danny was on his death bed to guilt Chin into coming home."

"It would have," Lou agreed. He broke into a soft chuckle. "I know you considered it."

Steve laughed too, a naughty little boy laugh. "I did. I actually did." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking down at the tile floor of the hospital hallway. "If he'd gone home alone he'd be dead right now. He'd by lying there on that bathroom floor with his eyes glazed over, all his muscles stiffening, the heat leaving his body. And we wouldn't even know it yet. We'd be going about our business. Having dinner. Drinking beer. Maybe watching something stupid on TV. And we wouldn't even know..." His voice trailed off.

Lou put a hand on his shoulder and shook him. "But he didn't. He gonna be okay?"

"They think so. He had some fluid build up in his lungs. They're treating him for it. Grace is in with him now. I just stepped out for some coffee." He took a sip of his coffee, as if to demonstrate. "Eventually it's going to occur to Danny that Grace could have been the one to walk into that trap. That's gonna mess with his head, Lou."

"The way this whole thing is messing with yours?"

Steve shook his head. "I stayed outside to talk on the phone. If I'd gone in the house when he did I'd have been close enough to hear him fall after he opened the door. I could have gotten him out before it got this bad."

"You got him out in time. That's the important thing. Listen to me, McGarrett. We're going to find out who-or _what_ \- did this. And, human or alien, we're going to give them cause to regret ever messing with one of ours."

"Damn straight."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Whadda ya thinking about?"

Danny, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, still in an open-backed hospital gown, ran a hand through his hair.

"Moving," he said. He sounded like he'd been gargling with gravel.

"Oh." Steve dropped into the chair next to the bed. "That's a little extreme, don't you think?"

"Don't I think?" he echoed. "Don't I think? No, I don't-" he choked to a halt and put a hand up to his throat.

"That sounds painful," Steve observed. "Is it painful? Because it sounds really painful."

Danny opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it and settled for tipping his head.

"You know what you should probably do? You should probably not talk. Like, for the rest of the day. Do you think there's any chance you could manage that?"

Danny made a face.

"I know, right? It's frustrating. Because you want to rant, but if you do, it hurts your throat. Hey! I know. How about if I rant for you?"

That netted him another look, a tight frown and narrowed eyes.

"No, really. I got this. I been listening to you for seven years. I got this. You want to say," he jumped up and dropped to the bed beside his friend, "skootch over. Okay, you want to say," he adopted his best Danny impression, "'don't I think? Don't I think? No, I don't think! These people came to my _house_ , Steven. My _house_! My home. My domicile. The place where I have tried to establish a sanctuary for my _children_. And they violated it. They came in and they just...they violated it. And I don't know who or, uh, even for certain _what_ they are or why they seem to want to kill me so badly and therefore I have no idea how to keep them _out_ of my house. Do you realize what that means? Do you? It means I cannot protect myself. And, more importantly, I cannot protect my children. Grace, Steven. What if Grace had been home? What if she'd gotten home before me? She could have been the one to walk into that.'"

Danny made a choking sound and his shoulders started to shake. Steve dropped his impersonation, put an arm around his partner's shoulders and squeezed. He leaned in close, so close that his forehead touched Danny's, and spoke in his own voice.

"She _didn't_ , Danno. She didn't. Grace is fine. It's scary. I _know_ that. Hell, I'm gonna be having nightmares for a long time about how close we came to losing you. But that didn't happen. Grace is fine and you're gonna be fine and we are going to _find_ who did this and whoever or, or _whatever_ they are, I am going to put the fear of God into them for everything they're doing or trying to do but, most of all, for attacking my family. And if they don't believe in a God, then I'll put the fear of me into them. And if they don't know the meaning of fear, then I'll damn well teach them."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

When Steve and Danny entered the Five-0 offices, Lou Grover turned to look down at the detective. He raised one eyebrow.

"Casual Wednesday, Jersey?" The normally professional detective wore gym shorts and a tee shirt that read WORLD'S BEST DANNO.

Danny opened his mouth but Steve held up a finger before he could speak.

"Don't answer that. You need to rest your throat."

"You-" Danny started again.

Again Steve cut him off. "Yes, I'm enjoying this. Consider it payback for scaring me yesterday." He turned to Lou. "Grace, it turns out, is entirely a Williams when it comes to over-reacting. She's decided that no one can wear anything that was in their house until it's been washed to get any lingering traces of chlorine gas out of it. The fire department told her it wasn't necessary. The gas will all have dissipated by now. But she insists she's not taking any chances with her Danno. She started with lightweight stuff, hence the shorts and tee shirt."

"I know," Lou said. "I was there for part of that conversation. She and Will got hold of a steam cleaner and they're cleaning the carpets and drapes and upholstery while they're at it."

"I hate this," Danny ground out. "She shouldn't have to-"

"Shut up," Steve told him. "Stop talking. Seriously. Is that really so hard for you? You can tell Gracie what she can and can't do when your throat heals, by which time she will have already done it and it will be a moot point."

Jerry arrived then, carrying a tablet under his arm. He brightened when he saw Danny. "Hey! Hi! How are you feeling?"

Again Danny opened his mouth to reply. Without even looking back Steve slapped his hand over his partner's lower face and spoke for him.

"He's good. Doing good. His throat is sore and his chest is a bit tight. He can't talk right now and we need to keep an eye on him in case he starts having trouble breathing but he should be fine. He thanks you for asking."

He dropped his hand and smiled back at his glowering friend.

"So let's put this together and see what we've got," he continued, waving everyone to gather around the smart table. "Lou?"

"I've been working on a timeline." The big man punched up a file and threw it up on the screen. "From what Jerry's found, the uptick in UFO sightings on Oahu began the last week of January with three sightings reported in a five-day period."

"Not just sightings," Jerry put in, "but group sightings with multiple witnesses and video. Not very good video, unfortunately. But from what I can tell the UFOs they started seeing that week were the same as the one in video I showed you earlier. From downtown Honolulu?"

"Right." Steve nodded. "Go on, Lou."

"Right." He manipulated the image. "Over the next seven months there were five thefts of X-ray machines, three from dentists' offices, one from a small lab, and one from a private college. In each of these burglaries the location was breached using a fingerprint or voiceprint from someone working there. The FBI is already on these, by the way. Four of the burglaries are considered inside jobs and the person involved in each case is still awaiting trial. But the third place they hit, the private college, was an exception. The fingerprint used was that of a lab technician. The same time the break in occurred, that lab tech was being pronounced dead across town at Queen's Medical after being hit by a drunk driver. I've got the files on that accident, incidentally, but it seems straightforward to me."

"Okay." Steve thought about it. "So they've got their cesium-137. Now they need a delivery system. That's where the Ocean's Eleven project comes in. For that they needed Jacobson, but the person who was sent to drug him didn't know what he looked like. It's a sure bet the people or aliens or whatever they are didn't know what he looked like either. I took his jacket, they thought I was him. Jacobson said there was a stain on his jacket. I sent someone to take it to the lab and try to find out what that was. We get anything on that?"

Lou shook his head. "Still waiting on test results. Processing Danny's house kind of shot to the front of the line." He glanced at Danny. "You'd have been proud of Eric. He was thorough and professional and as serious as I've ever seen him. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say he likes you."

Danny tried again to speak.

"Danny says, 'of course he likes me, I'm adorable.'" Steve grinned at Lou.

Danny shrugged and nodded.

"Just for the record," Steve said. "just because I'm telling you what Danny's thinking, that doesn't mean that I'm in any way endorsing his views."

Danny made a grumpy face. Steve smiled at him brightly.

"Man. You two are freaking me out."

"But what I don't understand," Jerry said, "is, why are the aliens after Danny?"

Danny opened his mouth and Steve held up one hand in front of his face and spoke for both of them. "Yeah. We don't understand that either. I mean," he thought about it. "Okay, first they just tried to scare him. When that didn't work they tried to kill him. Twice. Why does someone try to kill someone? Rule out crimes of passion. What's left?"

"Money," Lou said. "Fear. To silence them."

"Silence them! Right," Steve agreed. "They tried to scare him into not talking. They didn't want him to go to the authorities. He told them he is the authorities and they started trying to kill him."

Danny leaned over the table, pulled up a blank document and started typing.

THEY KNEW MY NAME AND WHERE I LIVE.

"They did, didn't they?" Steve agreed. "But they thought I was Jacobson. When you got hit over the head that night, you have your wallet on you?"

Danny opened his mouth and Steve glared at him. "That was a nod or shake your head question. It wasn't a try to talk question. Did you have your wallet on you?"

Danny hesitated, then nodded.

"Okay, and did you have your badge or anything in your wallet that would identify you as law enforcement?"

He shook his head.

"So this is what I think happened." Steve paused to gather his thoughts. "They came after me thinking I was Jacobson, but they weren't counting on Danny. He wasn't drugged like I was and he got a look at them. They hit him over the head and searched him to find out who he was. That gave them his name and address from his driver's license but they still didn't know he was Five-0."

"So they paid him a visit to try to scare him into silence." Lou took up the reasoning. "But they discovered, when they did, that not only does he not scare easily, he's a cop."

"But I still don't understand why they're trying to kill him," Jerry persisted. "He already told us what he saw and he didn't see anything that can help us find them or anything."

"Or did he?" Steve asked, understanding dawning in his eyes.

Lou nodded, following along. "He said, and you said, that the alien hit him with the lamp in your living room and knocked him out. So then how did he get outside?"

I FIGURED THEY DRAGGED ME OUTSIDE TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE I GOT HIT BY A BRANCH AND IMAGINED THE WHOLE THING, Danny typed.

"Maybe," Steve conceded. "Maybe. Or..."

Danny held his hands out, palms up, and gave his partner a questioning look.

" _Or_ ," Lou said with a slow smile, "maybe we hypnotized the wrong guy.


	10. Enemy Mine

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: First, I just wanted to say how much it delighted me that so many of you caught the Emergency! reference. Yes, I was referring to _that_ John and Roy. I think we're getting close to wrapping it up now, though I have no idea how many chapters it's going to take. But I think it's about time the guys started figuring out what's going on. Also, a lot of you guys are really smart, you know that? This chapter is short, but I wanted to get you something out tonight. Thanks for reading and I'll try to have more tomorrow!

Chapter Ten: Enemy Mine

"You wanna tell us how you're too strong-minded to be hypnotized?" Lou asked Danny.

"Nah. I don't want to wind up looking stupid like Steve did." Danny still sounded like he had a bad cold but he could talk again without a great deal of pain. "I do think this is unlikely to work, however. It's my understanding that being hypnotized involves, ah, lying still and being relaxed and, frankly, those are not things that I am particularly good at. I will cooperate to the best of my abilities, though, in the interest of furthering, possibly, our investigation."

"How long did he not talk for?" Leland asked.

"Almost thirty hours," Steve said. "Counting the time he was sleeping and/or unconscious. It's a personal best."

"Is it my fault," Danny asked rhetorically, "that I have an active mind and a great many intelligent thoughts with which I like to grace you?"

"You do have a fertile mind," Steve agreed drily.

"He has a fertile something," Lou said, half under his breath.

Danny ignored them and turned to the hypnotist. "What do you need me to do?"

"Just make yourself comfortable on the sofa. Kick off your shoes if you like. Try to relax." Leland went behind Danny's desk to snag his desk chair and pull it over by the sofa. As he came back he picked up a picture from the desk, as if he were just casually curious. "Is this your kids?" he asked.

Danny took the photograph and looked down at it with a smile. "Yeah. My kids. Grace and Charlie."

Leland settled down into his chair. "Tell me about them."

"My kids? They're beautiful. I mean, look at them. They're perfect. I'll never get over a mook like me helping to create such amazing little people. Not that Grace is so little any more..."

Steve let Danny talk for a couple of minutes, then stepped forward and raised his hand. "Uh, excuse me but-"

Lou elbowed him in the side. "Shh."

"But-"

"Trust me," Lou said. "Shh."

As he had done with Steve and his gun, Leland drew Danny out about his children, asking him to remember important moments in their lives. By the time he had him describe how he felt when Grace was born, it was obvious the detective was lost in his memories.

"...and I'll protect her forever. And I never want her to be hungry, or scared, or hurting, or sad, or cold..."

"Do you remember a time when you were cold? Frightened?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"Tell me about that, Detective."

"It's winter. Night. I'm leading a team of men with dogs through the woods."

"Where are you?"

"I told you. We're out in the woods. In New Jersey."

"Are you tracking someone?"

"No, we're just wandering around out here in the middle of the night for our health."

Steve snickered into his own fist.

Leland tried again. "Who are you tracking?"

"A group of escaped slaves."

The four men who weren't hypnotized looked at one another uncomfortably.

"This is nuts," Steve said. "Must be something he saw on a movie. Can you just move on?"

But Leland had already said, "what?"

"Escaped slaves." Danny sighed. "The fugitive slave act. Runaway slaves can be captured and sent back into slavery even if they make it to a free state, like Jersey. Local law enforcement is required to help track them down. These guys have been chasing this group all the way from Baltimore. They have bloodhounds and they got a scent from some duds the slaves had to abandon. They came to my office for help so I'm helping them. Mind you, if they figure out exactly what kind of help I'm giving them, they'll probably kill me right here."

"What?" Leland said again.

Danny rubbed the corner of his mouth with one finger, considering. He grinned suddenly. "You won't rat me out?"

"Of course not. Would we do that?"

"Okay, so, this is pretty clever if I do say so myself. They've got dogs and they're on the scent, right? But they wanted a local guide. Well, I left them word that I was already on the trail and had them catch up with me in the woods, but I told them they have to keep the dogs behind me, so they don't ruin the tracks. So we're stumbling along through the trees in the middle of a blizzard, me in the lead pointing out broken branches and marks in the dirt with the dogs behind me, baying and barking like crazy because they can smell that they're on the scent. But what these muggins don't know is that the scent the dogs are following is from a scarf I have tucked under my shirt."

"What?" Leland said again.

"This is nonsense," Steve said, half under his breath, "and it has nothing to do with aliens."

"I've got a scarf," Danny elaborated, "from one of the Negro women. As long as I can stay ahead of the dogs, the men handling them will think that I'm leading them towards their fugitives. I'm taking them towards a small river. I've just got to get far enough ahead of them so they don't see me ditch the scarf at the river's edge. None of these idiots knows anything about tracking, so I'll just point out some marks on the bank and claim that they're from a boat. But I have to plant the scarf where they can see me find it and then I have to carry it with me back to town once they agree that we've lost the scent. Because I've been carrying it, so the dogs are going to keep alerting on me and if these guys figure out I've led them astray I'll never make it out of these woods alive."

"What's your name?" Leland asked.

"It's Daniel," Danny said. "Daniel Abernathy."

"Can you tell me the date, Daniel?"

"Sure. It's the 25th of November."

"And what year?"

"Eighteen-fifty-seven. What year did you think it was?"

"Okay," Leland said, "I think we've gone back a _little_ too far..."

He brought Danny forward to Sunday night. Steve, Lou, and Jerry drew in closer as Danny once more walked them through his encounter with the aliens.

"...and they had Steve strapped to a floating board."

"Can you describe that floating board for me?"

"Sure. It was a floating board. It was a board and it was floating. It looks like a surfboard, actually. But there's round things under each end. You _know_ ," Danny's eyes narrowed, "the round things _could_ be drones."

"Drones?"

"Yeah, drones. You know? Little flying things? Bigger than the toy one Stan bought Charlie last Christmas, but not as big as that weaponized one we had to hunt down that time."

"You know, that would make sense," Steve said. "I mean, that would be one way to make a floating board, if you could control them together somehow."

"They had Steve strapped to this floating board," Leland reminded Danny. "What happened next?"

"What happened next?" Danny echoed. "What happened next? What do you think happened next? They were stealing my best friend. I jumped up and tried to grab him. One of them said 'shit' and hit me with the lamp."

"And do you remember anything after that?"

"I lay there for a minute," Danny said. "I was kind of stunned. But they took Steve with them out the front door. So I got my ass up and I chased them outside, but one of them picked up a branch and hit me again and then I didn't wake up until Steven woke me up in the morning."

"Okay, you're doing good Detective. Just tell me one more thing. When you ran outside after Steve and the aliens, did you get a look at their craft?"

"Sure. It was parked right there in front of the house."

"In front of the house?" Jerry asked. "Only the crop circle, I mean sand circle-"

Steve hushed him.

"You saw their craft," Leland said. "And can you describe it for me?"

"Yeah. It was a dark green 2008 Ford Econoline van with a license ending in 753..."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"There are over two-hundred dark green 2008 Ford Econoline vans on the island," Lou said. "None of them have a license ending in 753, however."

"If I was doing something illicit and I didn't want to be traced," a no-longer hypnotized Danny said, "I would take a license plate off a wrecked vehicle in a junkyard somewhere. I would have a police scanner to help me avoid checkpoints and I would always drive under the speed limit and obey the traffic laws to minimize the chances of anyone running my tags."

"Is it just me," Steve asked, "or are these aliens seeming less and less extraterrestrial?"

Jerry sighed. "This is disappointing. I really thought they were the real thing."

"Even if these aliens aren't real, it doesn't mean aliens don't exist," Steve consoled him.

"Yeah," Danny put in. "And these aliens keep trying to kill me, which makes them bad guys. At least in my book. And I would hope my friends would agree with me on that. You don't want real aliens to be bad guys, do you?"

"I suppose not. But, if they're not real, what about the sand circle? And the UFO that defied the laws of physics? And how did they talk to you with mental telepathy?"

"The mental telepathy's easy," Steve said. "The alien suits are costumes. The heads are like helmets, with their real heads fitting inside the cranium of the alien heads and the tiny little mouths jutting out the front. They just talk inside their helmets. The sound echoes and since the mouth on the costume isn't moving it's easy to convince drugged-up people that they're hearing voices inside their own heads."

"Okay," Jerry said, "but what about the other things?"

"I don't know yet, but we'll figure them out. But we also have some more important questions to answer. This is not a small operation. When I was hypnotized, you said I described nearly a dozen aliens in that so-called spaceship. There are a lot of people involved in this and a lot of money backing it. What's their end-game? What do they want to do, how do they plan to do it, and, most importantly, how are we going to find them and stop them?"


	11. The Truth is Out There

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's note: Sorry this has taken longer to get out! I've gotten to the point where I have to take all the clues I tossed in willy-nilly and try to weave them into a coherent whole. I've been doing research and I've tried to make the science at least sound like it makes sense, but please remember that I'm not a scientist. I just make stuff up, so don't try this at home. Also, I'm probably on a government watch list now for some of the things I've Googled. (Who am I kidding. I was probably on a watch list years ago.) Also, it seems I have a weakness for Danny whump. Who knew?

Chapter 11: The Truth is Out There

"Our working theory, at this point, is that a group of at least a dozen individuals have been passing themselves off as aliens in order to facilitate and obfuscate the theft of materials to build one or more so-called 'dirty bombs' and deliver them onto a beach. Does that sound right to you?"

"Obfuscate?" Steve echoed, eyes wide.

"Yes," Danny replied. "Obfuscate? You have a-you have a problem with my word choices?"

Steve considered, made a face, then shrugged and shook his head.

"Moving on," Lou prompted, drawing up a file on the smart table and gesturing to the information on his screen, "I believe we should consider what we know about them."

"What do we know about them?" Jerry asked. "It doesn't seem to me that we know very much?"

"You don't think so?" Steve asked.

"You do?"

"Let's start at the beginning. We know they know a lot about aliens and abduction stories because-correct me if I'm wrong here-these stories go back a lot further than the eight months or so during which we think this gang has been operating."

"Well, yeah," Jerry agreed. "They go back decades. Maybe centuries. Maybe even millennia."

"Okay," Danny leaned forward, counting points off on his fingers, "and we know they have alien costumes. Remember Steve's description of one of them as having two hands on each arm? I'm going to wager a guess here that the costumes have long arms to make them look disproportionate and the person in the costume had to put their real hands out some kind of opening partway up the forearm to operate the tablet he said they were using. So that tells us something specific about the costumes. Also, if I'm right about their floating platform, we know they have at least two drones-"

"And not just any drones," Steve put in. "Most drones you can buy on the open market only carry a pound or two. Even if you figure they used the drones to make the board float and then basically carried me on it, the board alone is going to weigh six or seven pounds."

"They did not seem to me to be carrying you," Danny said. "Steadying the board, yes. Carrying you, no. Certainly it did not inconvenience them when one of them let go to hit me with the lamp."

"So at least two supersized drones," Lou chipped in. "I've done a little research. They make drones that can carry up to five-hundred pounds now, but they aren't cheap."

"We know they're well-financed," Danny said.

"We know they have my lamp," Steve added.

"How's that going to help us find them?" Jerry asked.

"I didn't say it would. I'm just listing things we know about them."

"We know they were driving a dark green, 2008 Ford Econoline van and we've got a partial plate on that. And we should be able to learn something from the VIN number on the black Continental."

"Charlie Fong got back to me on that," Steve said. "That car was stolen from a dealership. Whoever did it bypassed the security cameras."

"Didn't the person who tried to break into the storage area at Pearl Harbor also bypass the cameras?"

"They did," Steve said. "Good catch, Jer. So we know they have skills with electronics. I don't know about the car dealership but the security system at Pearl is nothing to trifle with."

"But they weren't able to just bypass the security to actually open the storage compartment," Lou mused.

"They did know what they'd need to get through it, though," Danny said. "Handprint, voiceprint, security code, retina scan."

"But not that Jacobson has been conditioned to give them a false code that would have gotten them caught."

"The pair who came to see Danny," Steve said, "had no body hair, right?"

Danny nodded.

"So that explains why they didn't find any trace evidence in the Continental. They shaved their body hair off and wore gloves."

"But they didn't seem to realize I was a cop. And they didn't recognize you. As much as we've been on the news here the past few years, I'd at least expect them to recognize you. Although you were drunk and wearing Jacobson's coat."

"They're not Hawaiians and they're not connected to the Navy then, most likely. So they probably came here specifically for this operation? Why?" Steve asked.

"Because they intend to launch a dirty bomb onto a beach. One of the beaches here in Hawaii is their target."

"Terrorists," Lou said. "I hate terrorists. I'm gonna contact the NSA and Homeland Security and see if anybody they're watching has come to Hawaii in the past year."

"Good plan," Steve agreed. "I'm going to talk to Jacobson. Find out where his jacket has been in the past few days. I'll bug the lab for their report on that stain. If we're right and that's some kind of marker put there to identify him, that jacket crossed paths with one of our terrorists at some point."

"Not necessarily," Danny objected.

"How do you figure?"

"Think about Carpenter. Just some poor schmuck that gets kidnapped by aliens and sent in to slip you a micky. These guys use innocent people to do their dirty work. Drug them, frighten them, hell, maybe even hypnotize them."

"We're going to need a list of people in Hawaii who've reported being abducted by aliens in the last eight months," Lou said.

"I can do that," Jerry said. "But do you think they'll be able to tell us anything?"

"They don't have to know anything to be useful," Lou explained. "We can infer things from who was taken and when and from where. And maybe, just maybe, if we know where the aliens were on certain nights, we can find their green van on traffic cameras or security video. That might get us a shot of their human faces we can run through facial recognition software."

"And I," Danny said, "am going to do something I should have done days ago."

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"I'm going to go find a sketch artist and have them draw my visitors. I've already seen two of them, up close and personal. We can run them through the software now. Don't need body hair for that."

"And _that_ ," Lou said, poking Danny in the chest with his finger, "is why they've been trying to kill you."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Okay, so, making a list of alien abduction claimants isn't turning out to be as easy as I thought it would."

"Nobody fessing up to being kidnapped by ET?" Lou asked.

"Just the opposite," Jerry said. "I've studied UFOlogy for years, but even I'd never really realized how widespread these stories are. Some investigators estimate that two percent of the population has been abducted by aliens. That's 7,500 people just in Honolulu. There's even speculation that there's an alien base in the Waianae or Ko'olau mountains after a guy got a picture, in broad daylight, of a saucer-shaped UFO from Kaneohe Bay."

"So this line of investigation is a bust?"

Jerry shrugged and frowned down at the floor. "Looks like it. Sorry."

"Hey, not everything is gonna pan out. We still have Danny's description of the two who visited him. Maybe that'll get us somewhere. We also know they were at Steve's with that van Sunday night and we know they grabbed Carpenter Friday night. We can check cameras in those two areas. Maybe we'll get lucky. Why don't you check out costume shops and manufacturers and see if you can locate any alien costumes that match the descriptions we have?"

"I can do that. And I was thinking, where do you suppose that sand circle came from?"

Lou tipped his head, considering. "I can't say I've really thought about it. I'd guess they just used a blowtorch to melt the sand on the beach."

"I don't think it's that easy, though. Without industrial equipment, it can take a day or more to make glass from sand. And that circle wasn't little. They'd have had to melt a lot of sand to make it."

"I suppose that's right. I don't really know that much about making glass."

"From what I've read, it's a pretty complicated process. You have to have pure quartz sand and you have to add things to it to make it melt properly and not shatter. You _can_ just use beach sand, but it's going to have impurities. It seems to me that it would have been simpler for them to make the circle somewhere else, or just buy one already made, and put it on the beach to make us think a UFO landed there."

"It's worth a look," Lou agreed. "Why don't you take Eric over with a truck and get it back to the lab?"

Jerry's face lit up. "I can do that?"

"It's your idea, man."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"I had it dry-cleaned, of course," Jacobson said. "One does not report to a ceremony where one is going to be promoted to full Commander in a less-than-perfectly maintained dress uniform. I realize you don't know this, as this is not something you have ever done."

Steve rolled his eyes. " _Where_ did you have it dry-cleaned?"

"The place I always have it dry-cleaned."

"And that would be...?"

Jacobson shrugged. "I don't know, man. My girlfriend always drops it off for me."

"You have a girlfriend? A human one?" Steve asked. "Because, knowing you, I kinda figured the blow-up sheep was it."

"Ha ha. Very funny. Yes, I have a human girlfriend. Her name is Ashley and she's _hot_."

"And inflatable? Look, never mind. Just call Ashley and find out where she left your uniform. I think that stain on the lining was some kind of chemical marker. If I'm right, the dry cleaner is as likely as anyone to be responsible for putting it there."

Steve hung up without waiting for a response. He was covering the area around the Navy base, asking shopkeepers and service personnel if they'd noticed anything "weird" in the last few months. Without prompting, he'd already gotten five accounts of UFOs seen in the area. All of them matched the description of the one in the video Jerry had shown him. He'd given a copy of the video to a friend in the military who agreed to analyze it for clues and he was waiting for Jacobson to get back to him with the name of the dry cleaner. The day had gotten late while they were getting Danny hypnotized and then hashing out their theories. Twilight settled over the sea and Steve hoped this dry cleaner had expanded hours.

His phone rang and a glance at the screen showed it to be Danny.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Hey is for horses. Seals eat fish."

"This SEAL could go for some shrimp," Steve suggested. "Maybe when I finish here we could head to Kamekona's? Where are you?"

"I'm just outside of HPD headquarters," Danny said. "The sketch artist wasn't available earlier so I'm going in now. Charlie Fong just called me. He tried to call you but you didn't answer."

Steve checked and saw he had a voicemail, but he was already talking to Danny so he asked him, "what did he want?"

"That stain on Jacobson's jacket?"

"Yeah?"

"Ammonium nitrate."

Steve stopped walking. "Ammonium nitrate? The explosive you find in fertilizer?"

"Among other things, yes. Charlie has a very interesting idea of what it was doing there."

The Navy vet frowned. "Hit me with it."

"He thinks someone slipped a miniscule amount of ammonium nitrate into your pocket. Or, rather, Jacobson's pocket. It's a white powder so if Jacobson noticed it he'd probably just think it was detergent residue. Now, you and I think of ammonium nitrate first as being an explosive, but it does have other properties. One of those is that it absorbs water. In fact, in humid conditions-like, say, summer in Hawaii with a storm moving in-it can absorb enough water to liquify. Liquid ammonium nitrate is highly endothermic."

"Highly endothermic..." Steve repeated. "That's right! It's used in chemical cold packs."

"You're at the bar wearing Jacobson's jacket with a cold patch on your pocket."

"So the device Carpenter was given," Steve was following the reasoning, "could have been an infrared camera with a filter to control the heat range it registered. If it only registered cold, we'd have all been a bunch of shadowy figures, but I'd have had a blue spot-a light-on my pocket."

"Marking you as Jacobson and singling you out for a little something extra in your beer," Danny concluded. His voice changed. "Ouch," he said, sounding faint. "Uh oh. That's not good."

"What's not good? What's happening? Danny? Hey! Danny! Answer me!"

There was a clattering sound, such as a phone might make when it was dropped on concrete. Steve could hear screams and shouts in the background, accompanied by the thud of a falling body. A loud buzz, like a giant insect, started off faint, grew so loud that he could almost feel the vibration through the phone, and then faded away. The line stayed open, but Danny didn't speak again.


	12. Interrupted Journey

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's note: I was really, REALLY tempted to end this on an even worse cliffhanger, but I refrained. ;) This was an interesting chapter to write because I knew what kind of trouble I was getting Danny into but I had no real plan for getting him out of it. Hope you like what I came up with. Again don't try any of this at home. I'm not a scientist or a member of the medical profession. I just make stuff up.

Chapter 12: The Interrupted Journey

"You're at the bar wearing Jacobson's jacket with a cold patch on your pocket." Danny said into his phone.

"So the device Carpenter was given," Steve was following the reasoning, "could have been an infrared camera with a filter to control the heat range it registered. If it only registered cold, we'd have all been a bunch of shadowy figures, but I'd have had a blue spot-a light-on my pocket."

"Marking you as Jacobson and singling you out for a little something extra in your beer," Danny concluded. Something stung his neck and he slapped at it. "Ouch." As he pulled his hand away he looked down to find he was holding a small dart between his fingers. "Uh oh. That's not good."

His head spun. HPD headquarters blurred in his vision. Sounds grew muted and distorted. He could still make out Steve's voice calling his name from a distance, but he was powerless to answer. He felt his phone leave his fingers but never heard it hit the ground nor realized that he was following it down. Dimly, he became aware that he was lying on the pavement, looking up at the night sky. A buzzing, thrumming noise approached, growing louder and louder, like a swarm of killer bees from a bad B horror movie. A UFO swooped into view overhead. A cone of light shone out of the bottom of it, catching him in the center. It came lower, not stopping until it was hovering directly over him.

From his position he could see the interior. It was a massive drone with eight propellers providing it lift. A light sheath of some kind covered the outside, providing the illusion of a flying saucer. White Christmas lights poked through holes in the covering and a single spotlight shone beneath it. Below the spotlight was a metal claw on a telescoping arm. It came down now and closed around him with bruising force.

As it drew him up into the protected area at the center of the eight propellers, he lost consciousness. He was not aware of the craft rising up again above the level of the buildings and turning towards the sea.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Danny! Hey! What's happening? Danny, talk to me!"

By the time he finished speaking, Steve was back in his truck, headed for HPD headquarters. He could still hear background noises-cars, sirens, the babble of a crowd-but his partner remained silent. Footsteps approached and then a familiar voice, but not the one he was wanting to hear, spoke.

"Hello?"

"Duke? What the hell is going on there?"'

"Uh, Steve? I don't know how to tell you this but Danny just got kidnapped by a UFO."

"He what?"

"Swear to God. It was like nothing I've ever seen. Danny was walking across the grass, headed towards the building, and he suddenly stopped and then he just collapsed. Then this big flying saucer came down out of the sky. It had a light coming out the bottom of it and lights all around the rim. It came right down close and hovered over him and when it flew away again, Danny was gone."

"Where did it go?" Steve demanded. "Which way did it go? Please tell me you've got someone tracking it?"

"Yeah. It's flying about sixty feet up, headed towards the beach. But the lights have all gone off. It's going to be hard to follow it once the sun is completely down."

Steve swore under his breath and changed direction, driving towards the ocean.

"You've got to keep it in sight. It isn't really a flying saucer." Duke knew, of course, about the case Five-0 was investigating, though not all the details about the break in at Pearl Harbor. "This whole thing is a scam. They're trying to get rid of Danny because he's seen two of them. He was on his way to meet a sketch artist just now. Hang on, I'll call you right back."

He hung up on Duke and brought up another number, cursing impatiently at the time it took to be picked up.

"Hello?"

"Are you up in your chopper now?" Steve demanded.

"Yeah, bruddah," Kamekona said. "I'm in the middle of a sunset tour. What do you need, my fine friend?"

"Danny's been grabbed by a flying saucer."

"He's _what_?"

"Just listen. They're flying about sixty feet up and headed for the water. If they drop him from that altitude, he's dead. Also, we think he's unconscious, so if they drop him in the water there's a good chance he'll drown before we can get to him."

"I wanna help you, man," Kamekona said, "but I don't know what I can do against aliens."

"They're not really aliens. Okay? They're just ordinary people pulling a con. You've gotta help me. Please. I need you to get eyes on that craft."

"Okay. Hang on."

Steve pulled into the nearest marina, threw his truck into park, jumped out and ran down to the docks. He ran along until he came to a fast speedboat just getting ready to pull out.

"Five-0! I need your boat," he said, flashing his badge and jumping in. "And I need one of you to come with me." There were three young people in the boat. Two of them scrambled out and the third, a barefoot young man in board shorts, sank back down behind the controls.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

Steve pointed away from land. "Take us out about twenty yards and hold until I know where we need to go."

"McGarrett?"

He put the phone on speaker. "I'm here!"

"I got them. They're just crossing over Ala Moana Boulevard at Kamakee Street, headed for the beach. What you want me to do?"

"You want me to head towards Ala Moana Beach?" the young boater asked.

"Yeah. As fast as you can," Steve said. he turned back to the phone. "Okay, listen to me. We think this UFO is actually a large drone that's been disguised. The only chance Danny has right now is for us to force this thing to fly low enough for him to survive the fall, but we can't make it crash either." He stopped for a second to take a deep breath. If this went wrong, his best friend was going to die in the next few minutes. "I need you to get one runner on top of the craft and force it to fly lower, but you have to do it gently enough that you don't burn it out and cause it to crash. Can you do that?"

Kamekona's voice, when it came back over the phone, was as serious as Steve had ever heard it. "I don't know man. I can try but..."

"You're our only hope."

"Okay, but if I pull this off you have to start calling me Obi-Wan Kamekona."

"There!" the boat's pilot said, pointing. They were just off Ala Moana Beach now and Steve, following the kid's finger, saw Kamekona's helicopter closing in on the flying saucer, just crossing over the water's edge now.

Kamekona drew close, centered his right runner on the top of the flying saucer. "Here goes everything," he said over the phone, and took the helicopter lower. The saucer bobbled, tilted off kilter, fell away and dropped like a stone. Steve's heart went with it.

The saucer fell a good twenty feet, then pulled up and stabilized. It was still headed over the water and it was still too high up for Danny to reasonably survive the fall.

"Okay," Steve said. "Try it again."

Kamekona closed in a second time and put his runner on top of the craft. He forced it down another twenty feet. Smoke started to pour out of the saucer. Steve's heart faltered, wondering if the saucer was filled with smoke, choking Danny. If the device overheating was burning him or the electronics shorting out had electrocuted him. There were so many ways that Danny could be dying right now.

"Are you saying there's somebody in that thing?" the kid driving the boat asked.

"Yeah. My best friend."

"Damn."

"How low should I go?" Kamekona asked.

"As low as you can," Steve said.

"Just say the word and I'll put it in the drink."

Steve kicked off his shoes and nudged his pilot. "As soon as it goes in get as close as you can." He took up the phone again. "Keep it flying as long as you can," he told Kamekona. "It's better if the electrical components short out before it gets wet."

"Can do."

He hovered just above the water, following the dying saucer to keep it from climbing even as Steve and his companion followed them both. Steve was hyper-aware of everything that was happening around him. The sky behind him was painted in the orange and scarlet hues of a glorious sunset. The kid steering the boat for him was holding it steady in spite of shaking with tension. Kamekona had passengers, tourists watching out the windows, gawking at the high drama.

Danny could die.

He could be dying.

He could already be dead.

The saucer was about eight feet above the water. Steve motioned to the kid with him to move close. "Pull up. Get closer. I want to see if I can see inside."

The young man did as he commanded. They drew up under the saucer and Steve looked up, his heart in his throat.

From underneath he could see that it was, in fact, a drone. The frame, covered by some metallic material, shivered and trembled under pressure from Kamekona's copter. But what held Steve's attention was the limp form of his best friend, dangling from a huge metal claw in the center.

"Danny! Danny! Danno, can you hear me?"

He received no response and from this distance he couldn't tell if his partner was still breathing or not. With no time to waste, he looked back towards his pilot. "He's being held in a giant metal claw. If I can't get it open when that thing goes down, he'll drown. Please tell me you have a tow rope on this boat."

"Yeah. Sometimes we waterski. What do you want me to do?"

"Get it set up. When the saucer goes in the water, I'll put the line on it. I'll need you to pull us to the side of the boat as fast as you can and anchor it to a seat or something. We have to keep it from sinking until I get him free. Can you do that?"

The young man nodded, pale beneath his tan, and went for the tow rope. Overhead the saucer started shuddering and oscillating wildly. It occurred to Steve suddenly to be afraid it would simply explode, but before he had time to nurse that new fear the saucer sparked and snapped and died. The edge nearest them tilted downward and the rest of the saucer followed. The spray from it splashing into the ocean fell across the motorboat. Steve blinked and the saucer was gone beneath the waves.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

The first thing that registered in Danny's mind was pain. Something was squeezing him tight around his hips and shoulders, digging into his flesh and crushing skin and bone. He was moving, sailing and juddering like he was caught in a maelstrom. The air around him was hot and he choked on the acrid stench of burning electrical wires. He could hear a loud buzzing sound. It seemed to be everywhere. He tried to look around but he was caught firmly in the embrace of whatever was holding him and couldn't move. The only thing he could see was a patch of blue rushing past him in a dizzying blur.

Even as he became aware of the sound it spluttered and died. He felt himself lurch to the side and then he was falling towards the blue. He landed with a mighty splash and when he gasped from the impact his mouth and nose filled with salt water. He struggled against the crushing force that held him but he couldn't free himself. His heart pounded in his chest and his last thought, as his vision went dark again, was how ironic it was that he was going to drown like Billy Selway after all.

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

Seconds after the saucer disappeared, Steve hit the water in search of it. The water was only about fifteen feet deep here, protected by a reef from the ocean currents but dark in the growing twilight. Still, it only took him a minute or so to locate the fallen drone. It had flipped in the water and lay upside down. Danny was struggling weakly, caught in the giant claw, and Steve's heart leaped at the evidence that his best friend was still alive. Determined to keep him that way, he reached inside the saucer and looped the tow rope around one of the struts that held a set of propellers. He made it fast, then tugged on it sharply twice and the kid (Steve still didn't know his name) immediately started dragging it in.

Steve got underneath the craft and pushed, ignoring his own growing need for oxygen. Slowly at first, the saucer began to rise. It breached the water and Steve surface beside it. The boater had tethered the craft to the side of his motorboat, but the saucer was still filled with water and Danny was still completely submerged. With no real way to empty the water out, Steve leaned over, caught Danny's head, and lifted it above the surface. Danny was no longer moving and Steve couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.

He climbed onto the edge of the saucer, causing the motorboat to tilt alarmingly until the boat's driver rushed to the opposite side to counterbalance. Steve put his fingers against Danny's neck and was relieved to feel his heartbeat fluttering underneath his hand, but he didn't seem to be breathing. Steve tilted his friend's head back and blew two quick breaths into his mouth. He turned Danny's head to the side as much as he could without letting his mouth and nose go back under and pressed on his diaphragm. Danny coughed and choked. Water dribbled out of his mouth and he took a watery, gasping breath.

"That's it," Steve coaxed. "That's it. Come on, man. Breathe for me."

"What do you need me to do?" The kid asked.

Danny was still breathing. It was ragged, but there was air passing his lips. Steve lowered himself back into the water. "Come back over here and hold his head up for a minute," he instructed.

The young man did as he asked and Steve reluctantly surrendered his friend to him so he could swim around the motorboat and climb aboard on the other side. Once he was in the boat he returned to the side next to the tethered saucer and took Danny's life back into his own hands.

"Get us back to the docks, as fast as you can. We're going to need tools to get him out of this."

Steve's phone was lying in the bottom of the boat, floating in the water there but Steve was a SEAL. His phone case was waterproof. Holding Danny's head above water with one hand, he grabbed the phone with the other and found Kamekona still on the line.

"Hey, bruddah! How's my little haole friend? Is he okay?"

"He's alive. Thank you, Obi-wan Kamekona."

Steve hung up from talking to Kamekona and called for an ambulance and the fire department to meet them at the pier.


	13. Hanger 18

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's note: Here's the next bit! I'll try not to make you all wait as long as a week, though I can't really make any promises. My vacation is over and I have to go back to work in a few hours :'( I apologize in advance for the last line of this. We're getting close to the end now. The next chapter should be really fun to write! Thanks again for reading!

Chapter 13: Hanger 18

The flying saucer tied to the side of the boat meant they had to take it slow returning to the pier. Danny was breathing but not responding otherwise and Steve was nearly frantic by the time they arrived. The fire and rescue service hadn't gotten there yet but they could hear their sirens approaching.

There were a handful of people around who came over to see what all the excitement was about and Steve commandeered half a dozen of them. "Help me get this up on the dock and get the water out."

"What's the saucer part made of?" the kid who had driven the boat asked him. "Could you punch a hole in it so the water drains as we lift it? That way you won't have to tip your buddy around and jostle him so much."

"Good idea," Steve agreed. He knocked experimentally on the saucer. It was some kind of lightweight aluminum. He had the kid support Danny's head again while he took a large pocketknife from one of his many pockets and dove back under water. When he emerged the UFO was thoroughly punctured and as they lifted it the water ran out like it was going through a sieve. Danny's position, lying on his back atop the inverted drone, trapped in the giant metal claw, had to be uncomfortable. There was nothing he could do about that, though, until the fire department arrived. He supported his friend's head so it wasn't dangling awkwardly and turned his attention to his young assistant. "What's your name?" he finally asked.

"Aukai Kaiwi," the kid answered.

"I'm Steve McGarrett, from Five-0. This," he indicated Danny, "is Detective Williams, also of Five-0. You've been a big help, Aukai. Thank you."

"I'm glad I could help sir. Um, is this what cops do?"

Steve considered the question. "Ah, this...is a little out of the ordinary. Why? You thinking you'd like to be a cop?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I've been trying to figure out what I want to be. I'd never considered the police, but saving your friend was totally awesome. Um, he is going to be okay, right?"

Steve leaned over so he could use his free hand to brush Danny's hair out of his eyes. "Yeah, he's gonna be fine," he assured Aukai, swallowing a lump in his throat as he spoke. Damn salt water. "He's from Jersey. They grow them tough there."

Heavy booted feet raced along the pier towards them and half a dozen firefighters gathered around.

"What in the hell is that thing?" One of them demanded.

Steve glanced up at him. "Don't tell me you've never seen a UFO before?"

"A UFO. Really."

"Well, not anymore. We've identified it. Look, can you just get him out of there?"

"Hang on a second." A paramedic had pushed his way to the front of the group, his partner behind him. "Let us take a look at him first and see what kind of condition he's in. How did he get trapped in this thing, exactly?"

Steve explained as best he could while they took Danny's vitals. "So we had to get him out before they could kill him. He was moving a bit earlier but he took in some water and I think he wasn't breathing for a minute there. He's been pretty out of it since. Also, he collapsed right when all this started and we don't know why."

"He got hit with a tranquilizer dart," Lou's voice said.

Steve looked up to find that Lou, Jerry, and Eric had joined the crowd.

"Duke called us," Lou explained. "They found the dart on the ground where he fell. It tested positive for a mixture of tranquilizers they use on animals. It was probably a pretty large dose, too."

"That could also compromise his breathing," the paramedic said. "Let me get him on oxygen and we can see about getting him out of that contraption." He put a mask on Danny and set an oxygen tank off to the side. "Say, didn't we just treat this guy? For...exposure to chlorine gas?"

"Mmhm." Steve nodded.

"So this is the second time he's gone to the emergency room in three days?"

"Uh, actually it'll be the fourth time in five days. He got hit on the head Sunday, hit by a car Monday, and gassed Tuesday."

"What'd he do Wednesday?"

"We hypnotized him."

The other paramedic tapped the one who was speaking on the arm. "Tell me again about your crazy week?"

"Man, I can't compete with that!"

The firefighters stepped in, then, to open the claw.

"I looked for some sort of release mechanism but I couldn't find one," Steve told them. "I figure it was controlled electronically from a remote somewhere, but the electronics are fried. I also tried to just pry them open, but no luck."

"Let us give it a try," the fire captain said. "Chet, Marco, grab a couple of pry bars and see what you can do. If we have to, we'll put a blanket around him and have Mike bring the K-12."

Two of the firefighters came over with crowbars and between them they managed to open the claws and finally free Danny from the drone's embrace. Working together, they lifted him out of his metal prison and onto a gurney. The paramedics moved in to check his vital signs again and start an IV so they'd have a line open to administer any drugs they deemed necessary.

As they worked on him, Steve turned to the rest of his team.

"We need to get this thing back to the lab. I doubt any fingerprints have survived but we could be surprised. What I'm really hoping for, though, is something from the control module. An IP address and maybe something telling us where they were operating it from. If our counterfeit aliens have half a brain-and I'm sure they do-they'll ditch whatever computer they were controlling it with and change their location."

Eric stepped forward, fidgeting with nervous energy. "Is my uncle D gonna be okay?"

"I hope so," Steve said seriously. "You can come to the hospital with us if you want."

Eric considered it. "I better not," he decided. "There's things I can do to help solve the case. If I let them go to mope around a hospital, Uncle D will call me a mook." He looked to Steve pleadingly. "You'll call me when you know something?"

"Of course. I'm going to ride in with the ambulance. Why don't you use my truck to take this saucer back?" He tossed Eric his keys and the young man caught them and juggled them briefly.

"Cool. Jerry? You with me?"

"Sure."

The two took off to find Steve's truck and arrange to take custody of the saucer and Steve turned to Lou.

"How close was it?" Lou asked.

"Too close," Steve said, running his hand through his wet hair. He was keeping an eye on the men working on Danny while he talked and saw that they were nearly ready to go. His partner had yet to truly awaken.

"What do you know about pinky promises?" he asked Lou.

Lou frowned thoughtfully. "What do you need to know?"

"Well, let's say, hypothetically, that I pinky promised-or, rather, that I was volunteered to pinky promise but didn't object and so, therefore, did not negate it-to do a thing if another thing happened. And say that thing happened and I did the thing I promised to do. But then say that the first thing happened _again_ a couple of days later. Did I fulfil the pinky promise the first time or am I obligated to do the thing again?"

Lou scowled and shook his head. "Man, you better call Miss Gracie."

"Damn," Steve sighed. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"I don't believe this! Do I have to be the brains of this operation? What was Danno thinking, running around without a bodyguard? What were _you_ thinking _letting him_? They'd already tried to kill him three times."

"Technically," Steve said, "I think they only actually tried to kill him twice. Once with the car and then once with the chlorine gas. The first time they just hit him to make him stop following them, but then they tried to scare him into silence and realized they screwed up."

Grace just stared at him for a long minute, then let out a muted, frustrated scream. "I'm going to go find us some coffee," she announced, and stormed out of the waiting room.

"Does Danny let you drink coffee?" he called after her. She ignored him and he turned to Will, who was sitting in the corner keeping his head down. "Does Danny let her drink coffee?"

"He'll fret about her staying up too late and being tired tomorrow, but he won't tell her no. He's not very good at telling her no unless it's something serious."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "He was always that way."

"Uh, Commander McGarrett?"

Steve had already fallen back into his own thoughts and he returned to the conversation with an effort. "Mm? Yeah?"

"We were thinking, Grace and I-with Chin and Kono gone and Mr. Williams injured, you're probably pretty short-handed right now."

"Yeah..." He shot the young man a sideways look, wondering where he was going with this.

"Well, we thought maybe we could help you. Not doing anything dangerous," Will hastened to add. "Just, you know, watching cameras, running facial recognition software, things like that. Computer stuff. Even just making coffee and running errands. We just want to help," he said, spreading his hands. "This is her _dad_ that keeps getting hurt."

Steve studied him and couldn't help the smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Okay," he agreed. "As long as it's okay with your father, come down to Five-0 tomorrow and we'll find you something to do."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

For the second time in three nights, Danny awoke in a dark hospital room. This time he was hooked to a heart monitor and he had an IV and an oxygen cannula under his nose.

"Well, hell," he sighed.

The soft sound stirred movement in the room. Steve was once again sitting beside him in the dark and he came close now and leaned down.

"Take it easy, babe," he said gently. "You're gonna be fine."

"What the hell happened this time?" He meant it to be a demand but his throat was dry and it came out more of a croak.

"Here, let me get you some-" Steve rummaged around on the bed table, "damn. The nurse took the pitcher to get some fresh ice and she never brought it back. Just a second and I'll get you some water." He took the plastic glass and stepped into the bathroom.

Danny looked around the room, his eyes well-adjusted to the dim light. Gracie was sleeping on a couch under the window and as he gazed at her adoringly, she opened her eyes and blinked. He started to speak but a movement in the periphery of his vision caught his attention.

An alien was rising up outside the hospital window, as if it were floating on thin air.

Grace blinked and started to rise but Danny caught her eye. "Stay down!" he hissed. She frowned, but obeyed. "Babe," he said in a stage whisper. "We've got company outside the window."

Steve, who was at the bathroom door, stepped back out of sight. He pulled out a phone and made a quick call, presumably to HPD since their own team, Lou, in other words, would be asleep this time of night.

Outside the window, the alien fastened a suction cup to the glass and began moving something on a string around, making a big circle. A glass cutter, Danny realized, as the circle fell away. The alien caught it and set it carefully behind itself, then climbed in the window, stepping on the arm of the couch and missing Grace by inches. Like the one Steve had described under hypnosis as controlling the floating board, it had two extra hands protruding from it's forearms. One of them held a syringe. It advanced stealthily on Danny. Just as it reached him, Grace rose behind it and snapped the lamp on.

"Hey! Get away from my dad!"

The being spun around in surprise, but collected itself quickly. "You are dreaming. Go back to sleep."

Steve, advancing like the ninja Danny always accused him of being, came up behind it and put the muzzle of his gun in the middle of its back.

"I've got a better idea," he said. He relieved it of the syringe and set it on the bed table, then cuffed it's secondary hands behind its back.

Grace turned and checked out the window. "There's a drone out here," she said. "A big one."

"That figures." Steve was wearing his cargo pants and he dropped the syringe into an evidence bag he took from one of the many pockets. "Sweetheart, can you get your dad some water? I'm going to take ET here and," he stopped and shot his partner a bright, almost manic grin, "Project Blue Book-em, Danno!"


	14. Galaxy Quest

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfstone

Author's note: Sorry about the long wait for this! Going back to work after vacation has been exhausting. Also, I wanted to try to make sure all my threads are coming together the way they should. To the reviewer who pointed out that I used the wrong form of "its" (twice in the same sentence! Eek!) thank you and sorry about that. It was a typo. Anyway, here's the next installment. Hope it was worth the wait.

Chapter 14: Galaxy Quest

Under the bright lights in the Five-0 interrogation room, their alien prisoner looked bug-like. Its skin was gray with a rubbery, serpentine texture. A huge head dwarfed the rest of its body, a round cranium with two large, unblinking black eyes, unadorned slits for ears and nose. A thin, short mouth that never opened was set in a tiny chin. Silver boots covered its feet. Its legs and all four of its hands were cuffed to the metal chair it sat in.

It sat patiently, not that it could do much else, and bided its time. It didn't really know what to expect next. The plan had been to avoid the authorities. The plan had not been to get tangled up with the authorities. It certainly hadn't involved getting arrested by them. Before this week, the alien had never even heard of the Five-0 Task Force. It occurred to it now that reconnaissance was probably more important than they had realized, that eight months of unbridled success had made them sloppy, and that attempting to silence the inconvenient blond guy had been ill-conceived.

It studied the room and wondered how much trouble it was in.

It was deep underground, it knew that from the route they had taken to get here. The room was concrete block, the concrete floor broken only by a worrying floor drain. Besides the chair it sat in there was one other chair sitting next to the heavy door and a small rolling cart in the corner, its contents covered with a sheet.

Hours had passed since it had been captured in the detective's hospital room. Surely they were well into the next morning now and no one had been in to speak to it. There was a camera high on the wall and a light on the camera suggested it was being watched, but it was honestly starting to worry that it had been forgotten.

And then the door opened.

The man that it now knew was _not_ Lance Jacobson came in first. Commander Steven J. McGarrett wore khaki, many-pocketed cargo pants and he had a black tactical vest on over a forest green tee shirt. His posture was loose and easy and there was a cheerful air about him.

He was followed by a large young man in jeans and a plaid shirt. He had curly hair and an open, innocent face. He carried a tablet computer, studying it until they were in the room. He stopped in the doorway and stared at the prisoner with a look of awe.

"What are you going to do with me?" the alien asked.

McGarrett crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back, gesturing to the prisoner with one hand. "See, Jerry, how it never moved its mouth? It's using," he tapped his own temple, "mental telepathy."

"Whoa," Jerry breathed. He approached the alien gingerly. "What planet, solar system, star system or galaxy are you from?" he asked.

The alien took a moment to process this. This Jerry person looked and acted entirely sincere.

"We are from Alpha Centauri," the alien ventured.

"Awesome! I've always wanted to meet an alien. Welcome to Earth. We mean you no harm." He hesitated. "Well, actually, I mean you no harm. Commander McGarrett means you harm."

McGarrett gave the alien a bright smile and a little finger wave.

"I mean," Jerry made a face and shrugged apologetically, "you _did_ try to kill his best friend. Like, four times."

"I read it its rights," McGarrett said. "But then I started wondering if it actually has any."

Jerry consulted his tablet again. "From what I can find here, when you arrest an alien-"

"Undocumented alien," McGarrett specified. He turned to the prisoner. "Unless you have a green card?"

"We are from another star system," the alien said. "We do not require green cards to travel between the worlds."

"Right. Undocumented alien."

"Right," Jerry agreed. "When you arrest an undocumented alien they have the same rights as a citizen. Also, you're supposed to notify their embassy."

"Does Alpha Centauri have an embassy on Oahu?" McGarrett asked.

Jerry bit his lip. "Not that I could find."

"See, though," McGarrett said, "I think that, when you look up the laws on undocumented aliens, they're talking about humans who are citizens of other countries. I don't think the law applies to non-humans. See what it says about extra-terrestrials."

Jerry consulted his computer. "I'm not finding any laws or formal guidelines for dealing with captured extra-terrestrials," he said after a minute.

McGarrett made a show of considering. He frowned, shrugged, and tipped his head to the side. "In the absence of formal guidelines, we can go with common practice. What's the standard practice for dealing with extra-terrestrials?"

"Well..." now it was Jerry who frowned, shrugged, and tipped his head, "in popular culture, when someone captures an alien, they autopsy it."

McGarrett's face lit up. "Now that's a protocol I can get behind." He got the rolling cart out of the corner, pulled it over next to the alien and whipped off the cover. It held an assortment of scalpels, probes, tweezers, pliers, hammers, and a bright, shiny, surgically clean chainsaw.

The alien shied away, putting as much space between itself and the cart as the handcuffs on its four hands would allow.

"It's not dead, though," Jerry objected. "Doesn't something have to be dead before you autopsy it?"

"How do we know it's not dead?"

"Maybe because I'm sitting here talking to you?" the alien suggested. "And I'm breathing." Its own breath echoed in its ears. It was breathing faster, trying to avoid hyperventilating but failing miserably.

"But we have no knowledge of alien physiology," McGarrett said reasonably. "Maybe dead aliens _do_ talk and breathe. We need a baseline of information."

"Okay," the alien said. "Okay, this is nuts. You've made your point. Take my head off."

"That's what the chainsaw is for." He picked up the chainsaw and pulled the starter cord. An overwhelming roar echoed and reverberated through the concrete chamber. "Should I start with its head or maybe try taking off one of the hands first?" he shouted to his companion. "This hand, maybe." He held the chainsaw over the rubbery left wrist, then moved it up to hover over the much more flesh-and-blood hand protruding from the left forearm. "Or this one?"

The alien could only shriek unintelligibly in terror.

The door to the room flew open and a big black man stormed in. "McGarrett! What are you doing? McGarrett, _stop_!"

McGarrett throttled back on the chainsaw and turned to the newcomer. "Oh, hey, Lou!"

" _What_ are you _doing_?"

"I'm just getting ready to autopsy this alien."

" _Autopsy_ the alien?"

"It's standard operating procedure. Jerry looked it up."

Jerry gave a small shrug and nodded, holding up his tablet as if to illustrate.

"You can't just autopsy the alien," Lou objected.

The alien gasped and slumped back into the chair, limp with relief.

"You have to _film_ it so you can put it on YouTube. Here, I have a camera on my phone." He took out a phone, tapped the face a couple of times and then held it up so it pointed at the prisoner. "Okay, go ahead."

"No! No! Stop! I'm not an alien. Okay? I'll admit it! I'm not an alien. I'm just a guy in a rubber suit. I'm from _Cleveland_ , goddamn it!"

"Cleveland?" McGarrett echoed, his voice skeptical. "A few minutes ago you said you were from Alpha Centauri."

"Really? I _lied_."

"You've certainly lied at some point. But how do I know you're not lying now, to try to trick me? No, I think the best way to find out the truth is to go ahead and start removing body parts. Just so we can examine them more closely. Nothing personal."

He revved the chainsaw. The alien wet itself. The rubber suit held the moisture in a puddle around its left foot.

"Seriously?" Its voice climbed an octave in terror and disbelief. "You know I'm from either Cleveland or Alpha Centauri and you're gonna go with Alpha Centauri? Does that really sound reasonable to you?"

McGarrett turned off the chainsaw, set it aside, and leaned in to put his face right up against the alien's. The alien would not have believed it thirty seconds ago, but Steve McGarrett was even scarier without the chainsaw.

"Coming from the thing that I caught making a _fourth_ attempt to kill my best friend, I'll tell you how it sounds to me. It sounds to me like plausible deniability."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," the prisoner shrieked. "Don't kill me! Please! Don't kill me! I'll tell you everything I know!"

McGarrett stood up again, grasped the alien's head on both sides and lifted it straight up. It was set into a rubber gasket and it took a minute, but then it gave and popped off. He set it aside and turned back. The prisoner was a young man in his early twenties with a bright red face and brown hair plastered to his skull with sweat.

He looked back at Steve. "We were making a movie," he said. "We were only making a movie."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Making a movie," Danny echoed skeptically.

He, Steve, and Lou were seated in a row, looking up at the screen in the main Five-0 office. Jerry was down in his basement conferring with Eric. Grace and Will stood side-by-side at the smart table, working the computers. Danny was fresh out of the hospital (again) and they had just shown him the recording of their interrogation.

"This whole thing started in Burbank," Steve said, "with a low-budget, independent film company. They made science fiction movies."

"If you want to call them that," Will said disparagingly. "We found them and watched a couple. They had very limited releases. Like, one of them has a brother-in-law who owned a theater and he let them have late-night showings in exchange for cleaning the auditorium. They're also on YouTube, with a link to donate money. One of them raised, like, fourteen dollars."

"Their special effects weren't bad," Grace offered, "but the scripts were horrible."

"Thank you for this movie review," Danny said. He turned to Steve and Lou. "Why are our children in Five-0 headquarters operating the computers? This is no place for children. Dangerous things happen here. Plus, there are child labor laws."

"Just think of us as Five-0, The Next Generation," Will put in.

"I don't _want_ to think of you as Five-0, The Next Generation. I want to think of you as being somewhere _safe_ and doing something _innocent_ and _age-appropriate_ , like playing hide-and-seek or having tea parties."

Grace rolled her eyes affectionately.

"They're interning," Steve said.

"Interning? _Interning_?"

"Sure. Interning. Think how it'll look on college applications. Cheerleading, softball, helped take down a terrorist organization, president of the library booster club..."

"They are _years_ from college."

"Yes, but only a couple."

"Shut up. I'm not speaking to you."

"That would be a welcome change," Steve said. "Shall I continue telling you about our adversaries or do you want to bitch some more?"

Danny didn't answer.

"Danny? Danno?"

"I'm thinking. I'm thinking."

"Time's up." Steve leaned back and crossed his left ankle over his right knee. "The whole thing began, as I understand it, with a practical joke gone wrong. One of the guys wanted to scare his brother, so they decided to stage a mock alien abduction and film it, so they could laugh at it later. They mocked up a UFO with a small drone they'd been using for camera work, snuck in a window via the fire escape, and kidnapped the sleeping occupant. Only they got the wrong window and ended up kidnapping a total stranger."

"The guy was sleeping off a bachelor party and completely fell for the alien routine," Lou said. "The film they got wound up being about a thousand times better than anything they'd done deliberately and they came up with the idea of making a movie by kidnapping strangers, convincing them they'd been abducted by aliens, and filming them."

"There were a couple of problems, though," Steve said.

"You think?" Danny shook his head. "Like not being able to release the movie without getting arrested and sued?"

"That and they had ideas for really convincing alien abduction details," Lou explained, "but nowhere near the capital they'd need to pull them off. Things like the drone UFO that tried to drown you last night. Convinced that these were simply details that needed to be worked out, they started looking around for someone to finance the project."

"And they found someone," Steve said. "But, and here's where it gets dicey, our guest downstairs has no idea who, exactly, it was."

"Someone's financing their big, stupid movie project and he doesn't know who? Okay, but someone must. He's giving us the names of his co-conspirators, right?"

"Sort of." Steve sighed.

"Sort of?"

"They all had stage names and nicknames. For example, the guy we've got downstairs is named Ian Goldberg, but he's known to the others in the group as Boog Martian."

"You're joking," Danny said flatly.

"I'm not. He's given us some useful information and we should be able to identify more of them. We've got the YouTube channel to trace, and the money from the donation link. The theater where they showed their films in Burbank is out of business and in foreclosure. It was actually owned by a consortium and we haven't figured out yet who, exactly, gave his brother-in-law the keys for late-night viewing parties. And there are little details about some of the others that might pan out. Like, for example, one of the techs is a woman known as Eureka, Reek for short and no, I'm not making that up. Goldberg knew that she had a day job delivering pizzas in the greater Los Angeles area, so we reached out to a new task force that's just setting up in California-"

"Chin," Danny grinned.

"Chin," Steve agreed, smiling, "and he's got people looking into pizza parlors, trying to identify her. And our computer experts," he indicated Grace and Will, "are running down all the leads they can. But, of course, the film company members are just the little fish."

"Right. It's the 'producer' we want. Do we know what his or her end game is?"

"The film company was under orders to steal the X-ray machines and get the Ocean's Eleven project and turn them over to their producer. He is supposed to stage a demonstration-"

"An act of terrorism," Danny supplied.

"Exactly. Supposedly, he's going to show what he can do and then demand money not to do it again. He gets rich-though I'd bet that's not the real goal. The real goal is simply to commit an act of terrorism on the United States. But he gets rich and they wind up with a movie that, when they release it, is guaranteed to be a blockbuster."

"When they release it?" Danny echoed. "When they release it? Has it not occurred to them that when they release it they will get arrested on a host of charges, including _terrorism_?"

"Oh, you haven't heard the really brilliant part," Lou said with dry sarcasm. "In addition to the money, one of the demands was full immunity for everyone involved and- _and_ -all film rights."

"Well, they didn't pull off the Ocean's Eleven technology," Steve said, "and they're not likely to. If they try again, they'll be caught. But they have enough material for at least three dirty bombs and there are a lot of ways their producer could use that. We need to find this guy, and we need to find him now."


	15. Enterprise

I ka pau ʻole a ma hope loa aku

by elfinblue

Author's Note: Sorry about the wait! The real world sucks. Here's the next installment. Thanks for reading and I hope you like it. I will try not to make you wait so long for the next chapter.

Chapter Fifteen: Enterprise

"Kono called me."

"Let me guess," Steve said. "'Did you really get kidnapped by aliens? Oh, my God! You got kidnapped by aliens! We leave you alone for five seconds and you get kidnapped by aliens!' Right?"

Danny nodded. "Followed by twenty minutes of hysterical laughter. She called you too?"

"Oh, yeah."

They had tried to keep a lid on the investigation as much as possible, but after Danny's kidnapping and very public rescue rumors were rampant. The governor had downplayed the situation at a press conference, stating simply that, "the events that took place at Ala Moana State Park last evening were part of an operation being carried out by the Five-0 Task Force. I'm unable to go into specifics because it is part of an ongoing investigation. I will say, however, that we do not believe the Earth is under attack by extraterrestrials at this time."

Naturally, her words were taken by UFO enthusiasts everywhere to mean that the government was covering up the fact that the Earth was under attack by extraterrestrials.

"What in the hell is going on here?" Lou Grover growled.

Steve, Danny, Lou, and Jerry were crowded into Danny's Camaro, Lou and Jerry filling the back seat, on their way to Kamekona's for lunch. Grace and Will had decided, surprisingly enough, that being left in charge of the computers at Five-0 headquarters was cooler than going out to eat with their dads. Danny had promised to bring them something back, but the way the parking area in front of the shrimp truck looked, that might be easier said than done.

Steve, who was-naturally-driving, circled until he spotted an SUV pulling out. He spun into the vacant parking spot and the four men extricated themselves from the small car and stood for a moment staring at the crowd that was swarming their friend's establishment.

"You know, we should have expected this," Jerry said. "That video of Kamekona's helicopter pushing the UFO into the ocean has gone viral." There were actually over a dozen videos of the encounter, taken from the beach or from surrounding boats on cell phone cameras. One, in particular, though, was taken with a high-resolution video camera and caught all the action, from the time the UFO appeared until the fire department had finished getting Danny free from the drone. Because it had been taken from a distance, there was no sound and nothing on the video to betray the fact that the UFO was a fake.

"If you didn't know what was really going on, you'd probably be right in the middle of that crowd yourself," Danny observed.

Jerry nodded. "You're right. I would be."

"Well, hell. Are we gonna get any lunch out of this?" Lou asked. "I'm hungry."

"We could still go do pizza," Danny said. "I suggested pizza."

"No," Steve said. "Come on. I want to see what's going on."

Pushing their way through the crowd, they found Kamekona being interviewed by a reporter from one of the island's midday news shows.

"Did you really battle a UFO with your sightseeing helicopter?" the pretty, well-dressed young woman asked.

Kamekona caught sight of the Five-0 team and quirked an eyebrow at Steve as he answered her.

"I can neither confirm nor deny," he said solemnly. He was wearing a t-shirt with his face peeking out of a Jedi robe and the name Obi Wan Kamekona on it. The shrimp truck now sported a cartoon drawing of Kamekona's helicopter battling a UFO, and the helicopter in question, parked nearby, now read, "Kamekona's Island Tours-Defending the Galaxy since 2017."

The reporter followed Kamekona's gaze and immediately turned to meet the group that was just arriving. The camera operator turned with her as she spoke into her microphone. "And here we have the entire Five-0 Task Force." She shoved the mircrophone into Steve's face. "Commander McGarrett, what brings you here today?"

"The government's here to shut us down!" Someone in the crowd yelled. "They're trying to silence us. We'll never be silenced!"

"Are you here to try to shut down this gathering?" the reporter persisted.

Steve shrugged. "I'm here for shrimp."

Kamekona came over right behind her. "Hello, my fine friends!" He put an arm around Steve and turned them both to the camera. "Even the Five-0 Task Force knows that Kamekona's shrimp truck has the best shrimp in the galaxy. And, today only, if you bring in a picture of a UFO, you get 10% off your order!"

The cameraman gave the reporter a meaningful look and tapped his wristwatch.

"And there you have it," she said. "From Kamekona's Shrimp Truck, this is Megan Entwhistle reporting."

"Howzit, my little haole?" Kamekona asked Danny. "How do you feel? You look decidedly more vertical than the last time I saw you."

"I am, thank you. And I'm starved."

"I got it," Lou said, wading through the bodies towards the shrimp truck.

With the camera off, Megan Entwhistle turned to Steve. "Off the record, Commander. What can you tell me?"

"Off the record?" Danny asked, drawing her attention.

"Yes. Absolutely."

He beckoned her closer and she leaned in so she could hear him better while Steve shook his head and rolled his eyes behind her back.

"This is top secret," Danny stage-whispered.

"Okay."

"The garlic shrimp is really shrimp scampi in disguise."

5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0 5-0

"Our aliens' financial backer doesn't know that we've captured one of their drones," Danny said.

They'd taken their lunch back to headquarters once it became obvious that there was no way they were going to get to eat in peace on the beach and now they were sitting around Steven's office munching on shrimp and discussing the case. Their new "interns" were eating out in the common area, loathe to leave the smart table now that the coolest computer on the island was at their command.

"He-or she-doesn't know about it, or the aliens are _hoping_ he or she doesn't know about it," Lou agreed.

"I'm not sure I follow," Jerry admitted.

"Think about it," Steve said. "That UFO was convincing from a distance, but there's no way it would appear to be real under close scrutiny. The aliens, for want of a better term, have to know we captured it. Even if they weren't aware of it when they lost control of the drone, it's all over the Internet. So why stick a guy in an ET suit and send him to the hospital to try to kill Danny? I mean, they have to know we're onto them. So why maintain the facade?"

"Because," Jerry said slowly, "they don't want their backer to know the game is up?"

"That's the only explanation I can think of."

"But how could the backer not know as well?"

"Maybe it's someone who's not Internet savvy," Danny suggested. "Or who they don't think is Internet savvy. These aliens, by the sound of them, are all in their early-to-mid-twenties. It's not unusual for young people to view members of the older generation with disdain, especially in technological matters with which they don't have a great deal of experience."

"I just don't understand this," Lou said. "They're basically theater geeks, you get that, right? A bunch of dumb kids making bad movies. They started out with kidnapping, escalated it to the point where they were willing to kill Jersey here, and they're ready and apparently eager to commit an act of terrorism. How does this even happen?"

"From what our prisoner has told us, they seem to think that they have some kind of artistic license to do whatever they think they need to do in order to make their movie." Steve's phone sounded and he glanced down at it, then raised it to his ear. "McGarrett." He listened for a minute, then chuckled. "Really?...Yeah, okay. Thanks! I'll look forward to seeing it."

He hung up and the others looked at him expectantly. He turned to Jerry.

"Remember that UFO video you showed me?"

"The flying saucer over downtown Honolulu? That defied the laws of physics? Sure."

"That was a buddy of mine in Naval Intelligence. He's figured it out. He's sending me the explanation." He glanced down at his phone. "And it's here. Let's go put it on the big screen."

They went out to the main room, where Grace and Will were running the sketches of Danny's "Man (and Woman) in Black" through a facial recognition program. Danny went to stand by his daughter.

"Is it just me or is it a little unnerving how quickly these kids have picked up on operating our equipment?"

Will shrugged. "It's pretty basic."

"They're gonna take over for you, Danno," Steve teased. "You're becoming obsolete."

Grace leaned into him, a full-body hug without taking her hands off the table. "It's okay," she told him loyally. "You're good at other things."

"Awww," Steve and Lou teased.

"Oh, sure," Danny said. "Poke fun. I happen to think it's a good thing that my wonderful, darling daughter is a considerate and generous soul. And... _and_...I appreciate that she is kind to me, especially considering no one else is."

Steve sent a file to the smart table. "Here," he said. "Quick, play this file before it's drowned out by the sound of tiny little violins playing My Heart Bleeds For You."

Danny gestured to his partner. "You see what I put up with."

The file came up and the UFO video began to play in silence. After a few seconds a voice spoke over it.

"This is the video you sent me, as it's been making its rounds on the Internet. I've muted the sound, as it's irrelevant. After detailed analysis, I believe the group who made the video and whom we can hear talking are the innocent bystanders they appear to be. As you can clearly see, this is a three-dimensional object flying in actual proximity to the buildings surrounding it. We can tell that by the reflection that appears on the windows of the office building nearby when it flies low enough. The question is how it's able to move quickly over a long distance and then fly off at an astronomical rate of speed.

"In order to get a better idea of what's going on, I began by lightening the video, as you can see here."

The image on the screen grew lighter and they could now see the washed-out shape of the UFO inside the circle of lights that defined its edges.

"I believe the key to this is that the stunt was done in low light against a cloudy sky. In the lightened video you can see that the body of the UFO is painted the same color as the clouds. It comes in, flies around for a few minutes to attract an audience, then drops low enough to be reflected by the windows of one of the tall buildings, thus establishing that it is a physical object. Then it climbs back into the sky and apparently disappears, immediately reappearing almost 1,000 yards away. In fact, it neither moves nor disappears. It simply goes dark and, at the same time, it begins to project an image of itself at a distance, using the clouds as a movie screen. In this image, which I got by changing the lighting on a still taken from the video, you can clearly see the unlighted UFO still in place and a ray of light connecting it to the image that has appeared at a distance. Then, it simply moves the image while simultaneously shrinking it to give the illusion that it is disappearing at a high rate of speed. The whole thing is an optical illusion, undoubtedly created using a drone disguised to look like a stereotypical UFO."

The file ended and Jerry sighed.

"Sorry, Jer," Steve said. "I know you were hoping that the one in the video was still real."

"Yeah. Oh well."

"So let's think about this," Danny said. "You're the aliens. You've made a deal with some mysterious backer who has fronted you a large amount of money. I'm thinking, at this point, it's got to be at least several hundred thousand dollars. Your end of the bargain is to deliver the materials for dirty bombs and the Ocean's Eleven intel to allow him to use them. You have failed at getting the Ocean's Eleven project, attracted the attention of the authorities, lost some of your assets-namely the UFO that tried to kidnap me and the one our guest downstairs rode up to my hospital room last night-and one of your co-conspirators is in custody. What do you do now?"

"That depends on who they're more afraid of," Will said. The adults in the room all turned to look at him.

"Go ahead," Danny told him.

"If I'm more afraid of the cops, I cut and run and try to get as far away from Hawaii as I can before they figure out who I am. But the backer probably knows who I am already. So if I'm more afraid of him, I'm going to try anything I can think of to finish off my end of the bargain. I'd go after the Ocean's Eleven project again."

"But they know it won't work," Jerry objected. "They know we know they're not really aliens."

"They know we know they're not really aliens," Steve said, "but do they know that we know that they were after the Ocean's Eleven project when they grabbed me? Because if they don't know that we know then they wouldn't know that the Navy knows what we know that they don't know and now they know that I'm not Jacobson, which they didn't know but they don't know if I know that they thought I was even though I do know and..." He stopped, a perplexed look on his face. "I've confused myself."

"Babe," Danny said. "You've confused everybody. No, wait. I get what you're saying. You think Will's right and they're going to go after the project again. But you said it yourself. The Navy is on alert and if they try it they'll get caught."

"Caught, yeah," Steve said. "But who would we catch? Probably just one or two more low-level actors like Boog Martian, or whatever he calls himself. We want the whole gang, and their backer too."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I think we need to set a UFO trap."


End file.
